Early puzzle play: A predictor of preschoolers' spatial transformation skill.

Abstract

Individual differences in spatial skill emerge prior to kindergarten entry. However, little is known about the early experiences that may contribute to these differences. The current study examines the relation between children’s early puzzle play and their spatial skill. Children and parents (n = 53) were observed at home for 90 minutes every four months (six times) between 2 and 4 years of age (26 to 46 months). When children were 4 years 6 months old, they completed a spatial task involving mental transformations of 2D shapes. Children who were observed playing with puzzles performed better on this task than those who did not, controlling for parent education, income, and overall parent word types. Moreover, among those children who played with puzzles, frequency of puzzle play predicted performance on the spatial transformation task. Although the frequency of puzzle play did not differ for boys and girls, the quality of puzzle play (a composite of puzzle difficulty, parent engagement, and parent spatial language) was higher for boys than girls. In addition, variation in puzzle play quality predicted performance on the spatial transformation task for girls but not boys. Implications of these findings as well as future directions for research on the role of the role of puzzle play in the development of spatial skill are discussed.

Mental object rotation and motor development in 8- and 10-month-old infants

“…The idea of a close linkage between cognition and action or, in other words, between perceptual and motor systems of the brain, has recently gained new interest in the field of embodied cognition (Wilson, 2002;Zwaan, 1999). In support of this notion, recent evidence suggested that 4-year-olds' spatial transformation abilities were associated with how often they played with puzzles (Levine, Ratliff, Huttenlocher, & Cannon, 2011).…”

They can interact, but can they learn? Toddlers’ transfer learning from touchscreens and television

“…Together, these findings suggest that to effectively teach content from 2D materials and link it to information that children have already acquired from real-world experiences, teachers and parents should understand that there is a transfer deficit and be made aware of the educational implications. There are potential benefits to including media in the classroom, including enhanced engagement and interactivity, but additional scaffolding (Lauricella, Barr, & Calvert, 2009;Lauricella, Calvert, & Barr, 2014;Levine et al, 2012) by early educators may be necessary to facilitate transfer. Future research is necessary to assess how to facilitate transfer of learning between 2D media and 3D objects in the home and in the classroom.…”

“…The puzzle imitation task was chosen because it is nonverbal, which enables testing across a wider age range. It is also an ecologically valid imitation task because it involves an everyday activity (puzzle play) and because multiple early educational touchscreen applications use puzzles (Dickerson et al, 2013;Levine, Ratliff, Cannon, & Huttenlocher, 2012;Verdine, Golinkoff, Hirsh-Pasek, & Newcombe, 2014).…”

Development of mental rotation in 3- to 5-year-old children

“…Previous work (Levine, Ratliff, Huttenlocher, & Cannon, 2012) showed that puzzle play frequency, observed over the course of two years, was positively correlated to children's mental transformation performance at 4.5 years of age. More specifically, the quality of puzzle play (i.e., difficulty, level of engagement, and spatial language used in parent-child interactions) predicted girls' performance.…”