Producing Spatial Words Is Not Enough: Understanding the Relation Between Language and Spatial Cognition

Abstract

Prior research has investigated the relation between children’s language and spatial cognition by assessing the quantity of children’s spatial word production, with limited attention to the context in which children use such words. This study tested whether 4-year-olds children’s (N = 41, primarily white middle-class) adaptive use of task-relevant language across contexts predicted their spatial skills. Children were presented with a spatial scene description task, four spatial tasks, and vocabulary assessments. Children’s adaptive use of task-relevant language was more predictive of their spatial skills than demographic and language factors (e.g., quantity of spatial words produced). These findings identify new links between language and spatial cognition and highlight the importance of understanding the quality, not just quantity, of children’s language use.

Speech and Gesture Production Provide Unique Insights Into Young Children’s Spatial Reasoning

“…None of the other word types reached significance. These results are in line with the hypothesis that children do not always use their knowledge of spatial words in relevant ways within a spatial task and thus producing spatial words is not enough to support performance (e.g., Miller et al, 2017).…”

“…Miller and colleagues (Miller & Simmering, 2018; Miller, Vlach, & Simmering, 2017) built on these findings with nonspatial language to propose a new explanation for the effects of language. They proposed that developmental changes in selective attention to task‐relevant information supported spatial performance and was underlying effects of language.…”

“…Initial evidence for this account came from Miller et al (2017) who assessed whether children’s spatial performance was more predicted by their production of spatial words or by their use of words in task‐relevant ways. They measured production in a spatial scene description task in which location was a relevant cue for disambiguating locations across all trials, but color and/or size cues were only relevant for disambiguation on some trials.…”

“…They are also good measures to test children’s speech and gesture use as spatial concepts can be described within these tasks through both modalities. Research focused on spatial language showed that children’s speech and visual attention, as assessed outside of the spatial tasks, related to performance on these tasks (Miller & Simmering, 2018; Miller et al, 2017; Pruden et al, 2011). Research focused on gesture and spatial performance showed relations with gesture production and CMTT performance (Ehrlich et al, 2006).…”

Remember dax? Relations between children’s cross-situational word learning, memory, and language abilities

“…First, language accounts of children’s CSWL propose that receptive vocabulary contributes to children’s CSWL (Scott & Fisher, 2012; Smith & Yu, 2013) and the PPVT is a standardized test of receptive vocabulary. Second, the PPVT has been used in studies of children’s word learning in relation to other cognitive abilities (e.g., Miller, Vlach, & Simmering, in press). Finally, the PPVT task demands are similar to the CSWL task.…”