The Development and Measurement of Block Construction in Early Childhood: A Review

Mi, Tian; Luo, Tianrui; Cheung, Him

doi:10.1177/0734282919865846

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 44 publications

(76 reference statements)

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“…In terms of cognitive factors, Tian et al (2019) recently proposed a conceptual model that abstract reasoning, numeracy, representational thinking, and spatial ability are the underlying cognitive mechanisms for block play. Among these cognitive capacities, spatial ability is the most crucial (Tian et al, 2019). Spatial ability includes several subcomponents.…”

Section: Factors That Contribute To Children's Block-building Abilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Skills Associated With Block-Building Complexity in Preschoolers

et al. 2020

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Block building is a popular play activity among young children and is also used by psychologists to assess their intelligence. However, little research has attempted to systematically explore the cognitive bases of block-building ability. The current study (N = 66 Chinese preschoolers, 32 boys and 34 girls; mean age = 4.7 years, SD = 0.29, range = 3.4 to 5.2 years) investigated the relationships between six measures of spatial skills (shape naming, shape recognition, shape composition, solid figure naming, cube transformation, and mental rotation, with the former four representing form perception and the latter two representing visualization) and block-building complexity. Correlation results showed that three of the four measures of form perception (shape naming, shape recognition, and shape composition) were significantly and positively correlated with block-building complexity, whereas the two measures of visualization were not. Results from regression models indicated that shape recognition and shape composition, as well as shape-recognition-by-gender interaction, were unique predictors of children's block-building complexity. These findings provide preliminary evidence for the basic spatial skills underlying children's block-building complexity and have implications for classroom instructions aimed at improving preschoolers' block-building complexity.

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Section: Factors That Contribute To Children's Block-building Abilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Skills Associated With Block-Building Complexity in Preschoolers

et al. 2020

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“…In addition, young children need autonomy to use different skills as they engage in block play. Block-building skills are considered as useful indicators of other abilities such as representational thinking [ 49 ]. Block play requires some knowledge and skills before playing, which can consolidate their understanding of the world around them.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing Metacognition of 5- to 6-Year-Old Children: Evaluating the Effect of a Circling Curriculum Based on Anji Play

Chen

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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Metacognition plays an important role in young children’s learning and daily life activities. Based on Anji Play, we designed a metacognition enhancement program named Circling Curriculum for Metacognition Training (CCMT). With a quasi-experimental design, we examined the effects of the CCMT program on the metacognition of 5–6 year old Chinese children. Two classes of 5–6 year old children were randomly assigned into an experimental group (n = 25, 10 girls, mean age = 65.92 months, SD = 3.58) and a control group (n = 22, 10 girls, mean age = 66.77, SD = 3.87). The experimental group received the three-month CCMT, while the control group received routine teaching activities without imposing any interventions. All children took the metacognition test before and after the intervention. Results indicated that (1) there was no significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in all dimensions of metacognitive ability in the pre-test; (2) the experimental group exhibited better metacognitive ability than the control group in most dimensions of metacognitive ability in the post-test; and (3) the gain scores in the metacognitive ability of experimental group were significantly higher than those of the control group. The results are very encouraging and suggest that CCMT can foster the development of the metacognitive ability of young children.

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“…In contrast to the present paper, however, these works utilize high-level languages and data structures for the programming of these systems, without providing a link, as we do, to the behavior of stylized neurons and synapses, in an effort to remain as faithful as possible to the ways animal brains would solve these tasks. Less related to our problem is the literature on block stacking (see, for example, Hayashi (2007); Tian, Luo, and Cheung (2020)). These papers the focus on the ability of humans and chimpanzees to place a block on top of an existing tower without toppling it.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planning with Biological Neurons and Synapses

d’Amore

Mitropolsky

Crescenzi

et al. 2022

AAAI

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We revisit the planning problem in the blocks world, and we implement a known heuristic for this task. Importantly, our implementation is biologically plausible, in the sense that it is carried out exclusively through the spiking of neurons. Even though much has been accomplished in the blocks world over the past five decades, we believe that this is the first algorithm of its kind. The input is a sequence of symbols encoding an initial set of block stacks as well as a target set, and the output is a sequence of motion commands such as "put the top block in stack 1 on the table". The program is written in the Assembly Calculus, a recently proposed computational framework meant to model computation in the brain by bridging the gap between neural activity and cognitive function. Its elementary objects are assemblies of neurons (stable sets of neurons whose simultaneous firing signifies that the subject is thinking of an object, concept, word, etc.), its commands include project and merge, and its execution model is based on widely accepted tenets of neuroscience. A program in this framework essentially sets up a dynamical system of neurons and synapses that eventually, with high probability, accomplishes the task. The purpose of this work is to establish empirically that reasonably large programs in the Assembly Calculus can execute correctly and reliably; and that rather realistic --- if idealized --- higher cognitive functions, such as planning in the blocks world, can be implemented successfully by such programs.

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The Development and Measurement of Block Construction in Early Childhood: A Review

Cited by 4 publications

References 44 publications

Spatial Skills Associated With Block-Building Complexity in Preschoolers

Spatial Skills Associated With Block-Building Complexity in Preschoolers

Developing Metacognition of 5- to 6-Year-Old Children: Evaluating the Effect of a Circling Curriculum Based on Anji Play

Planning with Biological Neurons and Synapses

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