Learning on the Move: Walking Attainment Facilitates Visuospatial Skills

• In Event: 2-035 - Exploratory Actions and the Development of Acting with Others

Integrative Statement

Attainment of self-locomotion fundamentally changes children’s interactions with their environment and is, therefore, thought to have consequences for cognitive development. Studies have shown improvement in visuospatial cognition following the attainment of crawling. It is however not yet clear (i) whether similar improvements follow the attainment of walking and (ii) whether these effects persist as children grow older. We describe two studies trying to answer these questions and explore the role of exploration through self-locomotion as a possible mediator. While exploring, children make use of their acquired motor skills to manipulate the environment and in doing so, advance their cognitive skills. Exploration through self-locomotion specially allows children to manipulate spatial relations (e.g. changing their own location in relation to other objects) and is therefore thought to be especially relevant for spatial skills development. Therefore, the link between the attainment of walking and visuospatial skills is hypothesized to be (at least partially) explained by exploration through self-locomotion.
In the first study, visuospatial memory of 44 14.5 months old Dutch infants was assessed using the A not B task. Chi square test revealed that the infants with more than 4 weeks walking experience performed the task significantly better than the crawling infants. Effect size was medium (Cramer’s V=.30). Thus, when age is held constant, differences in visuospatial memory can at least partly be explained by differences in walking ability. When the level of gross motor skills (sitting and crawling) at age 10 months was controlled for, the effect of walking was no longer significant, indicating that this cognitive advantage might be explained by the effects of earlier motor development.
In the second study, 30 Dutch children were followed longitudinally. Age of walking was measured using parental reports. Spatial processing skills were assessed at age 36 months using the block-design task from the WPPSI. Exploration through self-locomotion was measured using home observation of children playing with a standard set of toys eliciting self-locomotion (see Figure 1). Results show that children who walk at an earlier age show better spatial processing skills at age 36 months (β=-.50, p=.036). The same children also show more exploration through self-locomotion at age 20 months (β=-.34, p=.013) and exploration predicts better spatial processing (β=.48, p=.028). Once exploration is added to the regression model (ΔR2=.21, p=.028), the effect of age of walking becomes marginally significant (β=-.37, p=.084), thus suggesting partial mediation. This finding is confirmed by the results of the Sobel test (Z=1.83, p=.07).
Together the studies suggest that walking is related to visuospatial cognition and this link is still visible at age 36 months. Moreover, exploration through self-locomotion partially mediates this effect. Results support an embodied view of development suggesting that real-life interactions with the environment facilitate cognitive development.

Authors

• Ora Oudgenoeg-Paz, Utrecht University
  Presenting Author

• Hanna Mulder, Utrecht University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Stefan van der Stigchel, Utrecht University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ineke van der Ham, Leiden University
  Non-Presenting Author

• M (Chiel) Volman, Utrecht University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Paul Leseman, Utrecht University
  Non-Presenting Author