Early Maternal Spatial Support for Toddlers and Math Skills in Second Grade

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to investigate whether maternal spatial support during two types of joint manipulative toy play tasks with 2-year-old children was longitudinally associated with math screening test scores in second grade. The interaction between spatial support and maternal education was explored as well. We also investigated predictions of a teacher rating of math performance at second grade, although these effects were less robust. Data were drawn from BONDS (The Behavior Outlook Norwegian Developmental Study), a longitudinal study of Norwegian children and their families. Participants were a subsample of 932 mothers and their 2-year-olds. Mothers were asked to help their children solve both a puzzle task and a shape-color sorting task. Mothers’ spatial support included spatial language, gestures, and placement of objects. Results showed that higher levels of spatial support during mother-child interaction tasks at 2 years of age was significantly associated with fewer math difficulties in second grade. This was the case for a puzzle task (a task associated with spatial visualization skills), but not for a shape-color sorting task (a task associated with shape and color feature discriminations). Conclusions are drawn with respect to the importance of identifying optimal parental spatial strategies associated with better math outcomes. These findings on parental facilitation of spatial skills during joint early play may be useful for future training interventions directed at parents of children at risk for poor math skills.     

Social Involvement, Disclosure of Sexual Orientation, and the Quality of Lesbian Relationships

Gay and lesbian political activists encourage lesbians to "come out" and get involved. Is this good advice for lesbian couples? In these secondary analyses of data collected form 784 lesbian couples in 1979 for the American Couples Study (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983), we examined whether social involvement and disclosure of sexual orientation were systematically associated with the quality of women's relationships. We predicted and found that partners matched on level of social involvement were happier than mismatched couples. The extent of women's social involvement had a curvilinear association with relationship quality: moderately involved couples were the most satisfied. Contrary to predictions, lesbians who had disclosed to a greater number of important others did not have more satisfying romantic relationships, nor did partner matching on self-disclosure enhance relationship quality.     

Young children's understanding of cultural common ground

Human social interaction depends on individuals identifying the common ground they have with others, based both on personally shared experiences and on cultural common ground that all members of the group share. We introduced 3‐ and 5‐year‐old children to a culturally well‐known object and a novel object. An experimenter then entered and asked, ‘What is that?’, either as a request for information or in a recognitory way. When she was requesting information, both 3‐ and 5‐year‐olds assumed she was asking about the novel object. When she seemed to recognize an object, 5‐year‐olds assumed she was referring to the culturally well‐known object. Thus, by 3 years of age, children are beginning to understand that they share cultural common ground with other members of their group.