Spatial Language and Children’s Spatial Landmark Use

We examined how spatial language affected search behavior in a landmark spatial search task. In Experiment 1, two- to six-year-old children were trained to find a toy in the center of a square array of four identical landmarks. Children heard one of three spatial language cues once during the initial training trial (“here,” “in the middle,” “next to this one”). After search performance reached criterion, children received a probe test trial in which the landmark array was expanded. In Experiment 2, two- to four-year-old children participated in the search task and also completed a language comprehension task. Results revealed that children’s spatial language comprehension scores and spatial language cues heard during training trials were related to children’s performance in the search task.