To investigate the effect on young children's coding of spatial information, an array of boxes was varied in number, size, and arrangement and was shown to 20 toddlers. Only the number of boxes defining the left and right sides of the array influenced performance; that is, multiple boxes were associated with the use of external objects as spatial…

Results of a study of 10- and 11- month-old infants support Piaget's hypothesis that practical, action-based knowledge during infancy is involved in achievement of spatial understanding and that the experience of self-initiated locomotion contributes to spatial development. (Author/NH)

Reasons for the relative lack of literature dealing with spatial concepts of low-vision children are suggested, and two assumptions are seen as invalid: (1) that knowledge of spatial concepts is not important for persons with low vision and (2) that children with low vision have adequate knowledge of spatial concepts. (CL)

Examines memory for room-sized spatial arrangement in relation to spatial and classification operations. Sixty first-grade children were given two Piagetian spatial tasks and a two-dimensional point duplication problem. Results of multiple regression showed that Euclidean knowledge (measured by verticality) and age in months predicted memory for…

Both "positive self" (in which students placed themselves in a specific relation to an object) and "positive object" (in which they placed an object in a specific relation to another object) were effective in four children's acquisition and generalization of prepositional concepts. The "positive object" required slightly fewer sessions. (CL)

West African Hausan Children (N=110) aged 5-6 were administered a torque test and relationshps between the torque task and visual spatial tasks were analyzed. Findings supported the assumption that educational experience related to circling accounts for decrease in torque, or that the educational experiences have potential influence on cortical…

five spatial tasks were administered to two groups of seven and one-half to nine and one-half year olds: 18 language-disabled and 18 children with normal language development. The language-disabled were less accurate on all tasks which involved anticipation or prediction of mental rotations, movements, or other transformations. (Author/CL)

Among young children, verbalization led to many correct responses on a spatial perspective task (indicating views of an object from different positions), but produced few correct responses in a rotation task (imagining different views of a rotating object). Results suggested that language enhances perspective task performance by allowing feature…

The spatial ability of 12 blind young adults was compared with that of 11 sighted and 11 blindfolded sighted students. Results indicated that past visual experience helps individuals to acquire spatial information from large scale environments. (Author/CL)

Examines the relationship between young children's spatial exploration and their cognitive representations of environments. Children ages 20-28 months and 36-44 months explored a museum room; measures of the quantity and mode (active versus passive) of their exploration were recorded. Results indicate individual differences in the extent to which…

Apparently, six-month-old infants can encode a location relative to a landmark, but in many situations their visual search behavior is dominated by a learned egocentric code. (RH)

To test the hypothesis that pretend play has a facilitatory effect on young children's spatial perspective taking, 45 children were individually engaged in fantasy or non-fantasy interactions with an adult, after which they were administered three standard perspective-taking tasks by a blind examiner. Supportive evidence was found. (Author/SJL)

Six experiments assessed 4- to 8-month-old infants' reactions to probable and improbable orientation positions following invisible transformations from an original orientation. Availability of orientation cues, objects' path of motion, and amount of invisible spatial transformation were varied. Results indicated that infants as young as 4 months…

Preschoolers placed stickers on maps to show locations of objects currently in view. Vantage point (eye-level versus raised), map form (plan versus oblique), and item type (floor versus furniture location) were varied. Results showed that using an oblique map first aided subsequent performance on a plan map. Subjects performed worse on floor…

Distinguishes two aspects concerning the production of shapes in handwriting--the spatial variability of letters and the geometric characteristics of letter shapes. Investigates adults' handwriting of a simple letter sequence under different conditions. Finds that alteration of geometric aspects of letters across changed circumstances does not…