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Updated: Dec 12, 2025
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The Spatial Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition
Published on: February 19, 2018
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Three-year-olds' spatial language comprehension and links with mathematics and spatial performance
Corinne A Bower1, Lindsey Foster2, Laura Zimmermann2
1Department of Psychology, Temple University.
Developmental Psychology
|August 11, 2020
Summary
Spatial language comprehension is key for math skills. Higher socioeconomic status (SES) and female preschoolers show better spatial language skills, which mediate the link between spatial ability and math performance for females.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Development
- Educational Psychology
- Developmental Neuroscience
Background:
- Early spatial skills are crucial predictors of later academic achievement in mathematics.
- The role of spatial language comprehension in the development of spatial and mathematical abilities remains under-explored.
- Understanding spatial relations through language, like 'behind' or 'under,' may influence cognitive development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the association between spatial language comprehension and early spatial and mathematics skills in preschoolers.
- To examine the potential moderating effects of socioeconomic status (SES) and gender on this association.
- To test a moderated mediation model linking spatial skill, spatial language comprehension, and mathematics performance.
Main Methods:
- A study involving 192 3-year-olds.
- Utilized a novel Spatial Language Comprehension Task, the Test of Spatial Assembly (2D and 3D TOSA) for spatial skills, and two mathematical assessments.
- Employed a moderated mediation model to analyze the data.
Main Results:
- The Spatial Language Comprehension Task demonstrated reliability and utility in identifying group differences and the space-math link.
- Preschoolers from higher SES backgrounds and females exhibited superior spatial language comprehension compared to lower-SES peers and males.
- Spatial language comprehension mediated the relationship between spatial skill and mathematics performance, but only for females.
Conclusions:
- Disparities in spatial language comprehension based on SES and gender are significant, given its strong link to mathematics skills.
- Spatial language comprehension plays a mediating role in the spatial skill-math performance relationship for females.
- Further research is warranted to explore the causal impact of spatial language comprehension on concurrent and future spatial and mathematical abilities.
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