Visual-Spatial Abilities and Number Skills in Children

The Journal of Experimental Psychology published research on visual-spatial abilities and number skills in children. The verbal abilities, visual-spatial abilities, and verbal number skills were assessed for the 141 children (5-6 years old) who participated in the study. After statistical analysis, the relationship between verbal and visual-spatial abilities to verbal number skills indicated the following:

Only visual-spatial abilities emerged as a significant predictor of verbal number skills.

The researchers concluded that visual-spatial abilities contribute to a larger extent to children’s verbal number skills than verbal abilities which is important for the conception of early mathematics assessments and interventions.

Another study assessed a spatial orientation task, a spatial visualization task and visual-motor integration task in 125 kindergarten children. The researchers determined:

that the role of spatial skills, notably spatial orientation, were important for mathematical development.

Since some components of spatial skills may be more predictive of mathematical development than others it is important to differentiate spatial skills when it comes to understanding numerical development.

References:

Cornu, V., Hornung, C., Schiltz, C., & Martin, R. (2017). How Do Different Aspects of Spatial Skills Relate to Early Arithmetic and Number Line Estimation?. Journal of Numerical Cognition, 3(2), 309-343.

Cornu, V., Schiltz, C., Martin, R., & Hornung, C. (2018). Visuo-spatial abilities are key for young children’s verbal number skills. Journal of experimental child psychology, 166, 604-620.

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