Children's Representation of Spatial Information

The present study utilized a multi-dimensional approach to examine children's communication of spatial information. Sixty male and female elementary school children, ages 6-7, 9-10, and 11-12, learned a route through a pedestrian maze with four color-coded inter sections and animal photographs to serve as landmarks. After learning the route to a specified criterion level, the children were r equired to complete three remaining tasks: a verbal recall task, a nonverbal reconstruction task, and a route reversal task. For each task the children were asked to provide a reason for their directional choice at each intersection. Analyses indicated developmental differences in performance only for the maze learning task and the verbal recall task .Sex differences were found to be significant only in an interaction with age for the reconstruction task and with age and starting position for the maze learning task. An analysis of variance examining the design of the maze (i.e., errors per intersection) indicated that one intersection produced differences in performance depending upon starting position. Chi-square analyses of the verbal reasons for each directional choice indicated a primarily egocentric frame of reference in the youngest children and a more allocentric one in the middle and older children. Discussion focused on the cognitive demands associated with the spatial tasks employed and their influence on children's communication of spatial information.