The developmental trajectories of spatial skills in middle childhood

Abstract

The multidimensional structure of spatial ability remains a debated issue. However, the developmental trajectories of spatial skills have yet to be investigated as a source of evidence within this debate. We tested the intrinsic versus extrinsic and static versus dynamic dimensions of the Uttal et al. (2013, Psychol. Bull., 139, 352) typology in relation to spatial development. Participants (N = 184) aged 6-11 completed spatial tasks chosen to measure these spatial dimensions. The results indicated that the developmental trajectories of intrinsic versus extrinsic skills differed significantly. Intrinsic skills improved more between 6 and 8 years, and 7 and 8 years, than extrinsic skills. Extrinsic skills increased more between 8 and 10 years than intrinsic skills. The trajectories of static versus dynamic skills did not differ significantly. The findings support the intrinsic versus extrinsic, but not the static versus dynamic dimension, of the Uttal et al. (2013, Psychol. Bull., 139, 352) typology. Statement of contributionWhat is already known on this subject?The dimensional structure of spatial ability is a debated issue.The Uttal et al. (2013) model proposes that spatial thinking is comprised of two dimensions.There is a scarcity of developmental findings assessing the validity of these dimensions. What does this study add?The developmental trajectories of intrinsic versus extrinsic skills differ significantly. The developmental trajectories of static versus dynamic skills do not differ significantly. Spatial skill developmental trajectories support the intrinsic versus extrinsic dimension only.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Practitioners' perspectives on spatial reasoning in educational practice from birth to 7 years

“…Extrinsic skills are between-object and thus encompass the ability to navigate and to understand the spatial relations between objects (Uttal et al, 2013;Newcombe & Shipley, 2015;Newcombe, 2018). This classification of intrinsic vs. extrinsic spatial skill has been supported at the neural level (Wraga et al, 2005) and throughout child development (Hodgkiss et al, 2021;Mix et al, 2018). More recently, Newcombe (2018) outlined evolutionary evidence to distinguish intrinsic spatial skills (that evolved for tool use) from extrinsic spatial skills (that evolved for navigation).…”

Practitioners' perspectives on spatial reasoning in educational practice from birth to 7 years

“…Extrinsic skills are between-object and thus encompass the ability to navigate and to understand the spatial relations between objects (Newcombe, 2018;Newcombe & Shipley, 2015;Uttal et al, 2013). This classification of intrinsic versus extrinsic spatial skill has been supported at the neural level (Wraga et al, 2005) and throughout child development (Hodgkiss et al, 2021;Mix et al, 2018). More recently, Newcombe (2018) outlined evolutionary evidence to distinguish intrinsic spatial skills (that evolved for tool use) from extrinsic spatial skills (that evolved for navigation).…”

Spatial reasoning in context: bridging cognitive and educational perspectives of spatial-mathematics relations

“…This typology differentiates static and dynamic spatial skills which refer to the imagined movement, or lack of, in a referent object(s), and intrinsic and extrinsic spatial skills, which refer to changes in the form of an object, or the relations between objects, respectively. Conceptually, this typology covers a broad range of spatial tasks; however, to date there is still no compelling empirical application of this classification system in educational settings Jung et al, 2020;Hodgkiss et al, 2021).…”