Sammendrag
Poor visuospatial skills have been linked to DCD as well as reading disability. This has also been suggested as a common factor in the co-occurence of DCD and reading disorder. An optimal development of visuospatial skills, therefore, seems crucial to many aspects of development. The present study set out to explore whether kindergarten environment has an effect on the development of motor and visuospatial skills in children. Two groups of five-year old children from an outdoor kindergarten (n = 15) and a traditional kindergarten (n = 9) respectively participated in the study. Both kindergartens were located in the same neighbourhood. The children in the outdoor kindergarten spent most of the day outside in a natural environment with hills and trees (no playground toys) while the children in the traditional kindergarten spent part of the day doing indoor activities and part of the day outdoors on a playground with traditional playground equipment. After having been in their respective kindergarten groups approximately half a year, the two groups of children were tested on four categories of visuospatial skills (spatial orientation of the whole body in relation to environment, interlimb spatial orientation, pen and paper spatial tests, and visuospatial tests). Possible interfering variables such as gender, leisure time activities and parents socioeconomic background were accounted for by means of Regression analyses. Results showed that the children from the natural kindergarten performed significantly better than those from the traditional kindergarten on three out of the four categories of visuospatial performance. The differences between the groups were particularly clear on those tests where visual processing is crucial.
Vis fullstendig beskrivelse
