Spatial skills in childhood and delay discounting in adolescence

Delay-discounting is the propensity to regard time-distant rewards as less valuable than those received immediately. Using the Millennium Cohort Study, we explored whether early spatial ability may be related to later delay-discounting via maths performance. Maths performance is linked to spatial cognition and arguably also delay-discounting since maths ability is predicated on computational ability. We investigated the link between spatial skills at age 5 and delay-discounting at age 17 (N = 5686; 56% female), tested for effect specificity by comparing spatial to expressive-language skills at age 5, and explored a pathway from both these skills to delay-discounting via maths performance (at age 7). Both spatial cognition and language were indirectly associated with delay-discounting via maths performance, although language had a direct association too. Our findings suggest small indirect associations of early spatial skills with later delay-discounting via maths performance, and point to a developmental link between expressive language and intertemporal choice.