A child's conception of space as a prerequisite to his understanding of spatial locatives

This study was performed to test whether or not cognitive structures give rise to linguistic forms. In this research, 12 male and 12 female Ss, ages 2-1/2 to 7-1/2, were assigned to stages of spatial development as a result of performance on a Piaget task of spatial conception. A series of language tasks was then administered to test both comprehension and production of spatial locatives. The results showed that spatial stages, whether topological, projective, or Euclidian, determined the use of locatives, suggesting that cognition precedes and is a prerequisite to certain language forms. A finding of some interest was that objects which have inherent fronts and backs, like cars or dolls, facilitate the comprehension and production of some locatives, presumably because the objects themselves provide additional linguistic cues which aid the child in organizing the structure of his language.