The relationship of spatial concept development to the acquisition of locative understanding

A cross-sectional study of children in the preoperational period was conducted to investigate the potential constraints of spatial concept development on children's understanding of spatial prepositions. A battery of Piagetian tasks and a locative comprehension measure were administered to 60 children, ranging in age from 2 to 7 years. In general, children were functioning in Stage II on the Piagetian spatial tasks before they comprehended the prepositions, in front of and behind, in terms of their own perspective using nonfronted objects. The findings also indicated that the children were functioning in Stage III--i.e., they had projective/Euclidean understanding--before they could comprehend in front of and behind when these terms involved projective/Euclidean spatial notions. The majority of children accounted for the front/back features of the object in placing an object in front of or behind a fronted object. The results suggest that as the child's conception of space changes, his comprehension of spatial prepositions also changes.