Preposition and Spatial Concept Acquisition
“Hey Addie, please put your shoes in your cubby”, “Wyatt, stand in front of Cooper”, “Eliza throw the ball up in the air!” These are some real life examples of the functional need for children to understand spatial concepts.
Working with young children, I find that the understanding and use of prepositions is incredibly important for daily life as a child (and the research backs me up!). Prepositions include words like “on, up, under,and behind” are critical in making requests, following directions and locating objects.
I target prepositions daily in my work with pediatric children with speech and language differences. A fundamental skill is being able to tell someone where an object is and being able to find an object when someone describes where it is- like “Mom, your keys are in the fridge”, and “Addie, your cup is under the table”.
Here is a chart that may be helpful for the acquisition of spatial concepts by age. Keep in mind that all children develop at different rates and these are estimates based on a compilation of research literature. Click on the chart to get your own copy.
When Teaching Spatial Concepts or Prepositions the literature makes two important points to keep in mind:
1) Children should be hearing prepositions in many different contexts. “Target words said by a clinician in a variety of syntactic and situational contexts (i.e. with different objects) were more often acquired by the two-year-old late-talking children..” (Alt et al, 2014). Meaning the more kids hear prepositions in different ways, the more likely they are to acquire them.
Example: If a child is learning the location “under”, they hear the word under as they are crawling under the table, “Hey, Jake, you are going under the table”. Later the child hears the word “under’ again, “Your cup is under your blanket”.A third time that day they hear, “My keys fell under my seat” and so on. The objects are changing but the preposition is staying the same.
2) The second point is that it is important to vary those contexts where the prepositions are presented. Those concepts should be presented in different places; at home, at the playground and the grocery store.
Example: If a child is working on the preposition “out”, The adult would say, “let’s go out the door”, then later in a different location, “Take the apple out of the cart” at the grocery store and later, “pull the piece out of the puzzle” when playing at home.
How to Teach Spatial Concepts
Start simple and with objects that interest the child. If you are working on the concept “off” and your objects are a cup and a small pig, place the pig on top of the overturned cup and push the pig off and say “off”. Repeat this allowing the child to push the pig off several times.
Each time you or the child pushes the pig off you say “off”. Pause after at least five times to wait to see if the child says “off”.
Later use the same word, “off” with different objects and repeat the activity.
Ask the child to push the pig off and celebrate when they do.
This simple activity will allow the child to initially learn the concepts you are targeting.
After you have used the guidelines above, the fun part is helping children understand and use spatial concepts in play!
HOW DO WE TEACH SPATIAL CONCEPTS ?
Here are some functional and fun ways to help a child learn spatial concepts:
“Hide” some plastic eggs around the room (allow the child to watch you hide them) and ask the child to find the eggs in different target locations “Find the egg under the table”, “Look under the chair”, “Maybe under the blanket”.
Allow the child to “hide” them and tell you where to find them.
Place sticky notes in target locations in a book (ie. “on top of the dinosaur's head”, “on top of the car”, “on top of his shoe”.)
Use a playhouse to target prepositions “on top of the roof”, “Under the bathroom”, “next to the tree” and move people in the target areas.
Using play dough to target “between”. “Put the blue ball between the 2 yellow balls”.
Use a train track set to target “in front and in back”. “Put the engine in front of the red train”
Fill a bin with water and have items that float “on top” or stay “on the bottom”.
Incorporating motor skills is a great way to engage children in learning spatial concepts. Make a blanket fort or use a chair and ask them to move to different areas, “Hide under the fort”, “Stand behind the chair”, “crawl between your friends”.
Digital Work with Prepositions (click the picture for a preview)
Alt M, Meyers C, Oglivie T, Nicholas K, Arizmendi G (2014) Cross-situational statistically based word learning intervention for late-talking toddlers. Journal of Communication Disorders 52: 207–20.
Hicks, S., Rivera, C., & Wood, C. (2015). Using Direct Instruction: Teaching Preposition Use to Students With Intellectual Disability. Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch, 46, 194-206.
Katrina Nicholasu, Mary Alt, and Ella Hauwille (2019). Variability of input in preposition learning by preschoolers with developmental language disorder and typically-developing language.
