Abstract
Given the developmental inter-relationship between motor ability and spatial skills, we investigated the impact of physical disability (PD) on spatial cognition. Fifty-three children with special educational needs including PD were divided into those who were wheelchair users (n = 34) and those with independent locomotion ability (n = 19). This division additionally enabled us to determine the impact of limited independent physical exploration (i.e., required wheelchair use) on spatial competence. We compared the spatial performance of children in these two PD groups to that of typically developing (TD) children who spanned the range of non-verbal ability of the PD groups. Participants completed three spatial tasks; a mental rotation task, a spatial programming task and a desktop virtual reality (VR) navigation task. Levels of impairment of the PD groups were broadly commensurate with their overall level of non-verbal ability. The exception to this was the performance of the PD wheelchair group on the mental rotation task, which was below that expected for their level of non-verbal ability. Group differences in approach to the spatial programming task were evident in that both PD groups showed a different error pattern from the TD group. These findings suggested that for children with both learning difficulties and PD, the unique developmental impact on spatial ability of having physical disabilities, over and above the impact of any learning difficulties, is minimal.
Highlights
Spatial cognition involves perceiving the location, dimension and properties of objects and their relationships to one another; it is core to everyday living, e.g., reading maps, packing a suitcase
Trajectories), F(2,94) = 2.529, p = 0.085, ηp2 = 0.051). Because this effect was marginal we had reason to explore it. This revealed a lower proportion correct at the lowest level of nonverbal ability in the physical disability (PD) wheelchair group compared to the typically developing (TD) group only (p = 0.036; other comparisons; p > 0.05; see Figure 4)
We predicted a differentiation in performance between the two PD groups for all three spatial tasks, with the PD wheelchair group finding the tasks harder than the PD no wheelchair group, on account of differences in their opportunities for independent exploration
Summary
Spatial cognition involves perceiving the location, dimension and properties of objects and their relationships to one another; it is core to everyday living, e.g., reading maps, packing a suitcase. There is a known relationship between motor competence and spatial cognition. In typical infants, the emergence of independent walking predicts the development of spatial understanding about the layout of their environment (Clearfield, 2004) and locomotor experience in infancy enhances spatial cognition (Yan et al, 1998). This is supported by longitudinal evidence that the age at which walking emerges is predictive of spatial cognition at 32 months (OudgenoegPaz et al, 2015). An association has been shown between motor ability and mental rotation performance in 5- to 6-year-olds (Jansen and Heil, 2010), and between motor ability and spatial navigation performance in 5- to 11-year-olds (Farran et al, 2019).
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