The Early Construction of Spatial Attention: Culture, Space, and Gesture in Parent–Child Interactions

• DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12781
• Publication Date: 2017-04-05T19:32:00Z
• Authors: Koleen McCrink; Christina Caldera; Samuel Shaki
• Keywords: Toddler; Naturalistic observation; Structuring; Hebrews

American and Israeli toddler–caregiver dyads (mean age of toddler = 26 months) were presented with naturalistic tasks in which they must watch a short video ( N 97) or concoct visual story together 66). English‐speaking caregivers more likely to use left right spatial structuring than left, especially for well‐ordered letters numbers. Hebrew‐speaking parents Americans structuring, letters. When constructing pictorial narrative their children, place pictures from Israelis. These structure biases exhibited by are potential route the development early childhood, before children have developed automatic reading writing habits.