ABSTRACT
Research on the development of spatial cognition has expanded our knowledge of cognitive development by investigating changes in cognitive structures and processes within a new domain. The accumulated evidence from this research also has revealed a great deal about how children perceive, understand, and remember spatial configurations. Obviously, spatial thinking occurs in the typical spatial cognition paradigms described in this book. Not so obvious, perhaps, is the role that spatial thinking plays in nonspatial tasks. A child’s spatial ability, understanding of spatial relationships, and coordination and integration of spatial information affect performance on a wide variety of tasks. The intent of this chapter is to bridge the conceptual gap between research on spatial cognition in particular, and the effects of spatial cognition in a more general sense.
