Maintaining Orientation Within Route-Following Tasks

Abstract

Contemporary evidence suggests that young children are able to use maps in route-following tasks if the map is oriented throughout the task, and that orientation within route-following tasks relies on the use of two basic strategies, i.e., one based on the compass, and one based on landmarks. An initial experiment with children aged 7 to 10 years showed that 8-to-10-year-old children have naturally-developed orienting strategies, whereas 7- to-8-year-old-children have not. In a second experiment, it was shown that children aged 7 to 8 years could learn to use the two basic orientation strategies. The authors found, in a small qualitative study, that children aged 9 to 11 years used both strategies selectively, depending upon the environment. In familiar, known environments, the use of a compass-based strategy for orientation was high; whereas in familiar but unknown environments, and unfamiliar unknown environments, orientation strategies were used selectively: typically, the compass-based orientation strategy was used for initial orientation at the beginning of the route and at predetermined checkpoints along the route; the landmark based strategy was used for maintaining and reinforcing orientation within the route.