Poster #12 - Toddlers’ Expressive Spatial Language Predicts Growth in Toddlers' Spatial Cognition

• In Event: Poster Session 07

Abstract

Spatial skills, the ability to navigate, manipulate, and analyze spatial aspects of daily environments, are essential cognitive tools for human development (Uttal, Miller, & Newcombe, 2013). These spatial skills, some of which begin their protracted development as early as infancy, contribute to the development of math skills later in childhood and beyond (Rittle-Johnson, Zippert, & Boice, 2019). Furthermore, greater spatial abilities early in life are associated with greater academic achievement and occupational outcomes, especially in STEM fields (Wai, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2009). Research on the relations between parent talk and the development of children’s math skills has previously focused on numeracy (Levine et al., 2010; Gunderson & Levine, 2011). Recently, studies have begun to explore this topic in the context of other important mathematical subdomains such as children’s spatial skills. Exposure to spatial language during infancy provides children with the support necessary to develop more nuanced categories of spatial relations (Casasola, 2005, 2008). However, previous longitudinal studies of toddlers’ spatial development have been inconsistent, with results ranging from significant positive correlations (Pruden et al., 2011) to weak negative correlations (Purpura et al., 2020), suggesting that more work is needed. In this study, we investigated potential longitudinal relations between toddlers’ spatial language production and their spatial abilities by examining how measures of expressive spatial vocabulary predicted growth in children’s verbal and nonverbal spatial skills from 2 to 3 years of age.

A sample of 75 children (mean age at T1 = 31.2 months and T2 = 45 months; 42 female) participated in a one-year longitudinal study. At T1, parents reported their children’s expressive spatial vocabulary using the spatial language items from the Preschool Assessment of the Language of Mathematics (Purpura & Logan, 2015). At T1 and T2, two measures of children’s spatial skills were administered. The Point-to-Spatial-Relations (PTSR; Casasola et al., 2020; Fig. 1a) task was a measure of children’s spatial vocabulary comprehension and involved instructing children to point to one of two images based on which one depicted the target spatial relation. A modified version of the Test of Spatial Assembly (TOSA; Verdine et al., 2014; Fig. 1b) task asked toddlers to recreate an image with their own magnetic pieces to measure their nonverbal spatial skills.

Children’s expressive spatial vocabulary at age 2 was positively associated with spatial vocabulary comprehension (𝜷 = .21, p =.046) and spatial assembly (𝜷 = .26, p =.033) at age 3, controlling for the effects of age and performance on the respective spatial task at age 2 (see Table 1). Interestingly, expressive spatial vocabulary at age 2 and spatial skills at age 2 were not associated, raising the possibility that children may be saying spatial words before understanding their meanings (and subsequently gaining opportunities for feedback and improvement through these mistakes). These findings suggest that toddlers’ expression of spatial vocabulary at age 2, regardless of their exact understanding of the words, predicts growth in verbal and nonverbal spatial skills from age 2 to 3, and that integrating spatial talk into daily conversations with toddlers may promote the development of spatial skills.

Group Authors

Samantha Silk, Danielle Fox, Heather J. Bachman, Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal, & Melissa Libertus

Authors

• Samantha Silk, Kenyon College
  Presenting Author

• Danielle S Fox, University of Pittsburgh

• Heather J. Bachman, University of Pittsburgh

• Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal, University of Pittsburgh

• Melissa E Libertus, University of Pittsburgh