J. Dirks (1982) reported that the Block-Design subtest score from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children--Revised is amenable to practice effects transferred from a game. Results from the assessment of two other spatial games, using 37 children in daycare (23 experimentals and 14 controls) indicate no transfer effects. (TJH)

Investigated the interpretation of the word "big" by 40 children of 3 to 5 years. The type and orientation of objects used in the study were varied. Results demonstrated that contextual factors influenced children's responses. (RJC)

Examines the ability of 140 children of 3-5 years to use functional standards to judge size. The ability to use nonegocentric functional standards was present by age 3. However, 3-year-olds performed above chance only when their attention was directed to the relevant function. (RJC)

Presents an activity in which students use geometric figures, rep-tiles, to design a tile floor. Rep-tiles are geometric figures of which copies can fit together to form a larger similar figure. Includes reproducible student worksheet. (MKR)

Studied spatial knowledge in fully blind versus fully sighted four- to nine-year olds. Found that blind children performed as well as sighted on all tasks but one. (ETB)

This study of 34 adults with Down's syndrome found that right-handed subjects exhibited no lateral advantage in dihaptic shape-matching, whereas left-handed subjects displayed an expected left-hand advantage. In a visual field dot enumeration task, both groups exhibited left-field superiority. Results indicate that subjects' atypical cerebral…

In a visual habituation experiment, infants watched a circle (the "agent") move toward another circle by jumping over a barrier or jumping without a barrier present, and then watched a circle move straight to another circle. Found that infants were able to identify the agent's spatial goal and to interpret the agent's actions causally in…

Examined how the nature of spatial relations influences children's ability to remember relations between progressively larger landmarks and spatial regions. Found that when asked about the location of an object, children clearly understood that they should provide the landmark with which the object was positioned. However, referential…

Gender differences in cognitive abilities were studied in 1,224 13-year olds using a multivariate latent variables approach. No gender differences were found in the structure of cognitive abilities, but mean differences in favor of females were found for general intelligence, with higher means for males on most spatial dimensions. (SLD)

Two studies examined four- and five-month-old infants' behaviors of leaning forward toward, and reaching for, an object placed within or beyond their reach. Infants who did not lean forward showed a decline in reaching behavior when the object was placed beyond their reach. (MDM)

Investigated the use of spatial relationships in the PROLOG programing language to help students express declarative thinking. Declarative thinking is a process of describing the environment that involves the recognition of relationships between entities. (BC)

Comparison of 2 totally blind, 2 visually impaired, and 9 normally sighted children (ages 5-8) on tasks of visual perspective taking found that the totally blind children were older than the other children when they mastered the tasks, made the highest percentage of errors before mastery, and made different errors. (Author/DB)

A study examined how well children could discriminate matches from nonmatches of multicomponent stimuli within the prototypic mental rotation task and how long it would take them to make such discriminations. The goal was to determine whether children are differentially sensitive to the various spatial features of visual stimuli and whether…

Children, ages 9 to 13 years, made judgments of proportion with a variety of graphical elements in 2 experiments. A characteristic pattern of over- and underestimation was observed; this pattern was also present, but previously unnoticed, in judgments made by adults. (MDM)

Two experiments examined the question of whether blindfolded young children and congenitally blind children show mental practice effects for blind movements that cross the body midline. Results suggested that young children with sight can show mental practice effects in the absence of visual cues. (GLR)