Children's Ability to Learn about the Environment from Direct Experience and from Spatial Representations

Abstract

This paper reviews the research which is related to very young children's environmental knowledge and skills. The paper first summarizes the studies which have considered how children learn and remember routes from direct experience in the environment, and secondly the experiments which have considered environmental skills (e.g. the ability to give directions or use maps). In each case the theoretical background about young children's environmental and spatial abilities is described and the relevant empirical evidence presented. It is pointed out that the results from recent studies, especially those carried out in realistic situations (rather than laboratory settings), have demonstrated that the theoretical assumptions about children's spatial ability have underestimated children's actual performance in the environment.