Tangible and digital materials for spatial play: Exploring the effects on parental talk and children's spatial reasoning

Technology is transforming children's lived experience with spatial play. In particular, parents may interact with children differently depending on whether they play together with tangible or digital materials. The present research examined whether the medium for play (tangible or digital) affected kindergarten-aged children's language experience during puzzle play and explored immediate effects on spatial reasoning. Sixty parent-child dyads played with a tangible or a digital set of tangram puzzles for 10 minutes; children received the Children's Mental Transformation Task (CMTT) before and after the play session. Their performance on the most challenging problems of the CMTT improved after tangible, but not digital, play. This effect was related to parental use of orientation and transformation words during the play session and unrelated to the success of puzzle completion. Moreover, we found that the digital interface, specifically the prescribed movements to use the app, affected parental use of deictic words (eg, here, there), and that this relation may be driven by children's production of a pointing-like action. Together, these results shed light on the interaction between material for play, parent spatial talk and children's spatial reasoning. Practitioner notes What is already known The use of touchscreen devices for play by children has become increasingly common. Parents tend to engage children in device-relevant talk more than task-relevant talk when using electronic devices. Hands-on experience with tangible materials provides short-term and long-term benefits on children's spatial reasoning. What this paper adds With their parents, children at 5 to 6 years completed more puzzles of tangible materials than of digital materials; the design interface of the digital puzzles affected children's action experience. Tangible materials invited parents to talk about orientation and transformation more than digital materials. The design interface that prompted children to produce pointing-like gestures invited parents to use more deictic words (eg, here, there). Children's spatial reasoning was elevated after playing with tangible (but not digital) puzzles. This elevation was related to parental talk about orientation and transformation. Implications for practice and/or policy This study sheds light on the considerations for parents and educators when choosing tangible or digital materials for children to engage in spatial play. The results inform about design principles of educational technology for spatial learning by children at the kindergarten age.