Individual differences in young children's visual-spatial abilities.

An enduring challenge in visual-spatial research has been to identify the factors contributing to individual differences in ability. This research investigated the overall, verbal, and nonverbal visual-spatial ability of 61 (34 boys) three- to five-year-olds (M_age = 57.3 months; SD = 7.9) and the following factors known to be related to visual-spatial ability: grade, sex, socio-economic status, math and spatial activity engagement at home, parental mental rotation, quantitative reasoning, intelligence, and working memory. Results revealed quantitative reasoning and general intelligence were an important predictor of overall and nonverbal visual-spatial ability. Mathematics activities in the home predicted children's verbal visual-spatial ability but not after accounting for various cognitive factors. Given the highly malleable nature of visual-spatial ability, we anticipated a grade effect; however, this was not found. Older children did not outperform the younger children suggesting a possible 'kindergarten in-effect' whereby schooling did not result in visual-spatial learning over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]