Where music meets space: Children's sensitivity to pitch intervals is related to their mental spatial transformation skills.

Relations have been found among various continuous dimensions, including space and musical pitch. To probe the nature and development of space-pitch mappings, we tested 5- to 7-year-olds and adults (N=69), who heard pitch intervals and were asked to choose the corresponding spatial representation. Results showed that children and adults both mapped pitches continuously onto space, although effects were stronger in older than younger children. Additionally, children's spatial and numerical skills were tested, showing a relation between children's spatial and pitch-matching skills, and between their spatial and numerical skills. However, pitch and number were not related, suggesting spatial underpinnings for pitch and number.

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.

Infants segment continuous events using transitional probabilities.

Throughout their 1st year, infants adeptly detect statistical structure in their environment. However, little is known about whether statistical learning is a primary mechanism for event segmentation. This study directly tests whether statistical learning alone is sufficient to segment continuous events. Twenty-eight 7- to 9-month-old infants viewed a sequence of continuous actions performed by a novel agent in which there were no transitional movements that could have constrained the possible upcoming actions. At test, infants distinguished statistically intact units from less predictable ones. The ability to segment events using statistical structure may help infants discover other cues to event boundaries, such as intentions, and carve up the world of continuous motion in meaningful ways.

Deconstructing building blocks: preschoolers' spatial assembly performance relates to early mathematical skills.

This study focuses on three main goals: First, 3-year-olds' spatial assembly skills are probed using interlocking block constructions (N = 102). A detailed scoring scheme provides insight into early spatial processing and offers information beyond a basic accuracy score. Second, the relation of spatial assembly to early mathematical skills was evaluated. Spatial skill independently predicted a significant amount of the variability in concurrent mathematical performance. Finally, the relation between spatial assembly skill and socioeconomic status (SES), gender, and parent-reported spatial language was examined. While children's performance did not differ by gender, lower SES children were already lagging behind higher SES children in block assembly. Furthermore, lower SES parents reported using significantly fewer spatial words with their children.

A long-term predictive validity study: can the CDI Short Form be used to predict language and early literacy skills four years later?

This longitudinal study examined the predictive validity of the MacArthur Communicative Developmental Inventories-Short Form (CDI-SF), a parent report questionnaire about children's language development (Fenson, Pethick, Renda, Cox, Dale & Reznick, 2000). Data were first gathered from parents on the CDI-SF vocabulary scores for seventy-six children (mean age=1 ; 10). Four years later (mean age=6 ; 1), children were assessed on language outcomes (expressive vocabulary, syntax, semantics and pragmatics) and code-related skills, including phonemic awareness, word recognition and decoding skills. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that early expressive vocabulary accounted for 17% of the variance in picture vocabulary, 11% of the variance in syntax, and 7% of the variance in semantics, while not accounting for any variance in pragmatics in kindergarten. CDI-SF scores did not predict code-related skills in kindergarten. The importance of early vocabulary skills for later language development and CDI-SF as a valuable research tool are discussed.