  Language is one of the critical skills children learn, and when children have difficulty, it affects much of their educational experience. A strong spatial understanding is critical to a child's development of language and other skills. But how do children develop spatial understanding? This symposium examines what areas of the brain are involved in spatial understanding. Through the use of imaging machines and other research, the speakers have been able to identify findings that have important implications for our understanding of how the brain functions. What Hands Reveal About the Brain Recent work has shown that the human brain is remarkably flexible. For example, in deaf children who learn American Sign Language, brain structures that over hundreds of thousands of years evolved to handle spoken language can in one lifetime adapt to processing a visual-spatial language. Can study of these children provide a window into the human brain's capacity to organize both language and spatial cognition? The human brain is divided into two hemispheres, the left hemisphere, which underlies language and verbal skills and the right hemisphere, which underlies visual-spatial skills. Dr. Bellugi has used brain imaging techniques to investigate the acquisition of spatial language and has also investigated how stroke or brain injury to the left side of the brain impacts sign language users-they retain the physical ability to sign but are unable to actually communicate in sign language. Dr. Bellugi discussed the acquisition of language in spoken and visual-spatial modes. She specifically focused on the interplay between language and space. Her research on children who learn sign as a first language allows us to investigate this interplay. Dr. Bellugi's research explores central issues of neuroscience linking cognitive functions with their biological bases. Among other honors, she has received the Ipsen Prize in Neuronal Plasticity and the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association. She is a Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where she is Director of the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience. more information on Ursulla Bellugi, Ph.D.
Children's Mental Models of the Spatial World Humans must deal with spatial structures at a very wide range of scales-from very small structures such as molecules and atoms to very large structures such as stars and galaxies and the human-scale world of continents and streams in between. As historians of science and cognitive psychologists have so compellingly demonstrated, neither the world of the very small nor the world of the very large is easily understood, even by adults. The spatial structure of the human-scale world is also complex. How do we come to understand such spatial structures? The answer lies in developing representations of space that allow us to put environmental phenomena into context. We need to understand how big they are, where they are located, and how they are related to one another. To help us in our understanding, we create maps, physical models, as well as mental maps and mental models. And to do this, we need to come to terms with the idea of space. Dr. Downs explored the ways in which the construction of models of space is fundamental to the child's representation of the real world. He drew on work in developmental psychology, geography, linguistics and computer science to argue that an understanding of the properties of spaces is as essential to educators and psychologists as it is to the developing child. Dr. Downs is internationally known for his work on cognitive maps of the environment, the development of spatial cognition, and the links between education and development. He is Professor and head of the Department of Geography at Pennsylvania State University. |
