Brian N. Verdine

Contributions of executive function and spatial skills to preschool mathematics achievement.

Early mathematics achievement is highly predictive of later mathematics performance. Here we investigated the influence of executive function (EF) and spatial skills, two generalizable skills often overlooked in mathematics curricula, on mathematics performance in preschoolers. Children (N=44) of varying socioeconomic status (SES) levels were assessed at 3 years of age on a new assessment of spatial skill (Test of Spatial Assembly, TOSA) and a vocabulary measure (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, PPVT). The same children were tested at 4 years of age on the Beery Test of Visual-Motor Integration (VMI) as well as on measures of EF and mathematics. The TOSA was created specifically as an assessment for 3-year-olds, allowing the investigation of links among spatial, EF, and mathematical skills earlier than previously possible. Results of a hierarchical regression indicate that EF and spatial skills predict 70% of the variance in mathematics performance without an explicit math test, EF is an important predictor of math performance as prior research suggested, and spatial skills uniquely predict 27% of the variance in mathematics skills. Additional research is needed to understand whether EF is truly malleable and whether EF and spatial skills may be leveraged to support early mathematics skills, especially for lower SES children who are already falling behind in these skill areas by 3 and 4 years of age. These findings indicate that both skills are part of an important foundation for mathematics performance and may represent pathways for improving school readiness for mathematics.

I. SPATIAL SKILLS, THEIR DEVELOPMENT, AND THEIR LINKS TO MATHEMATICS

Understanding the development of spatial skills is important for promoting school readiness and improving overall success in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields (e.g., Wai, Lubinski, Benbow, & Steiger, 2010). Children use their spatial skills to understand the world, including visualizing how objects fit together, and can practice them via spatial assembly activities (e.g., puzzles or blocks). These skills are incorporated into measures of overall intelligence and have been linked to success in subjects like mathematics (Mix & Cheng, 2012) and science (Pallrand & Seeber, 1984; Pribyl & Bodner, 1987). This monograph sought to answer four questions about early spatial skill development: 1) Can we reliably measure spatial skills in 3- and 4-year-olds?; 2) Do spatial skills measured at 3 predict spatial skills at age 5?; 3) Do preschool spatial skills predict mathematics skills at age 5?; and 4) What factors contribute to individual differences in preschool spatial skills (e.g., SES, gender, fine-motor skills, vocabulary, and executive function)? Longitudinal data generated from a new spatial skill test for 3-year-old children, called the TOSA (Test of Spatial Assembly), show that it is a reliable and valid measure of early spatial skills that provides strong prediction to spatial skills measured with established tests at age 5. New data using this measure finds links between early spatial skill and mathematics, language, and executive function skills. Analyses suggest that preschool spatial experiences may play a central role in childrens mathematical skills around the time of school entry. Executive function skills provide an additional unique contribution to predicting mathematical performance. In addition, individual differences, specifically socioeconomic status, are related to spatial and mathematical skill. We conclude by exploring ways of providing rich early spatial experiences to children.

Shape up: An eye-tracking study of preschoolers’ shape name processing and spatial development.

Learning the names of geometric shapes is at the intersection of early spatial, mathematical, and language skills, all important for school-readiness and predictors of later abilities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). We investigated whether socioeconomic status (SES) influenced children’s processing of shape names and whether differences in processing were predictive of later spatial skills. Three-year-olds (N = 79) with mothers of varying education levels participated in an eye-tracking task that required them to look at named shapes. Lower SES children took longer to fixate target shapes and spent less time looking at them than higher SES children. Gaze variables measured at age 3 were predictive of spatial skills measured at age 5 even though the spatial measures did not require shape-related vocabulary. Early efficiency in the processing of shape names may contribute to the development of a foundation for spatial learning in the preschool years.

Developer meets developmentalist: improving industry–research partnerships in children’s educational technology

Today, fully 98% of children under eight have access to a mobile device at home (Rideout, 2017). Not surprisingly, researchers are increasingly interested in studying development in the context of these new technologies. But there are barriers, including the rapid pace of change and the expertise required to develop software to be used in research. We propose that successful partnerships between developmentalists and developers are crucial for rigorous research on children’s digital technology. We focus on the need for researchers to partner with developers during the research process. For example, researchers might want to create and test an educational game or evaluate how different game features might promote learning, both of which require industry partnership. Some categories of research, such as testing a commercial product or examining the impact of digital media on parent– child interactions, may not require developer input, but for any research questions, industry collaboration is vital. We provide guideposts for researchers interested in establishing research–industry partnerships based on lessons learned from our own experiences and from having one of our own (BV) join the educational technology world. These suggestions are followed by recommendations on how the field can foster stronger partnerships. When developing research–industry partnerships, researchers must understand the developer’s perspective. Though academics need developers for technical expertise in creating digital products for research, developers have fewer compelling reasons to partner with academics. The primary motivator for developers is to create a product that will be competitive in the marketplace. Accordingly, developmentalists can make themselves useful to developers by providing information about the effectiveness of their products. This useful information comes in two forms – evaluative research evaluates a commercially available product, while formative research helps developers build a product based on scientific evidence and test its efficacy. The reality however, is that data collection, especially with children, is a lengthy process. Even producing preliminary reports can occur on such an extended timeline that results are no longer helpful for improving or marketing the product. For example, in one of our collaborations, over a year passed between when we initially received the game and when we

Effects of geometric toy design on parent–child interactions and spatial language

Geometric forms have formal definitions. While knowing shape names is considered important for school-readiness, many children do not understand the defining features of shapes until well into elementary school (Satlow & Newcombe, 1998). One reason is likely that they do not encounter enough variety in the shapes they see (citation removed). The present study observed 60 parents and their 3-year-old children during play with geometric toys, exploring how spatial language varied with the nature of the shape-toy set (canonical shapes versus a mix of canonical and unusual or less-canonical variants) and whether geometric shapes were presented as tangible, traditional toys or shown on a touchscreen tablet app. Although children in the app condition heard more shape names than the other conditions due to the language produced by the app itself, children used more overall words and more spatial language with tangible toys that included varied shapes. In addition, parents used more shape names with sons than with daughters and tended to adjust their use of spatial language more in response to varied shape sets with boys, although these findings need replication to evaluate generality. These data suggest that including non-canonical shapes in tangible shape toys may provide a low-cost, high-impact way of refining adult-child interactions that might facilitate childrens early geometric knowledge.

IV. RESULTS-LINKS BETWEEN SPATIAL ASSEMBLY, LATER SPATIAL SKILLS, AND CONCURRENT AND LATER MATHEMATICAL SKILLS: LINKS BETWEEN SPATIAL ASSEMBLY AND LATER SKILLS

Armed with a valid and reliable test of early spatial skills, we turned our attention to our second research question, do spatial skills at age 3 predict spatial skills closer to the time of school entry?Model 1 in Chapter 3 suggested that the answer was yes, but here we account for the impact of potentially mediating variables such as mathematics, vocabulary, and EF skills. Due to sample size restrictions and the complexity of the resulting models, all variables from all time points of the longitudinal study could not reasonably be placed in one model. Therefore, EF from age 4 is used but the age 4 spatial and mathematical measures do not appear. Preliminary analyses indicated that age 4 spatial and mathematical skills were related in the expected ways to the other variables and that they tended to simply mediate the relations between age 3 and age 5 skills. The age 4 data would not alter our conclusions with respect to any of our research questions. Bivariate, zeroorder correlations for the full dataset are provided in Table 9 to allow readers to see how the age 4 variables related to those from the other time points. This article is part of the issue “Links Between Spatial and Mathematical Skills Across the Preschool Years” Verdine, Golinkoff, Hirsh-Pasek, and Newcombe (Issue Authors). For a full listing of articles in this issue, see: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mono. v82.1/issuetoc.