Spatial Perspective Taking Abilities Assessed in Down Syndrome Youth

Spatial abilities, particularly spatial perspective taking, are critical components of carrying out day to day activities (Newcombe & Shipley, 2015; Newcombe et al., 2013; Uttal et al., 2013). Spatial perspective taking involves understanding objects’ orientation to one another in the environment. The current study focuses on improving perspective taking in persons with Down syndrome (DS), as they experience deficits in this skill. Given that previous research has shown spatial skills improvement through spatial experience (Halpern, 2013; Newcombe & Huttenlocher, 2003), individuals with DS received spatial play exposure. We used Piaget’s three-mountain task (Piaget & Inhelder, 1956) to assess improvement in perspective taking, and a second perspective taking assessment where participants were asked to assume the point of view of four different toy dogs. Participants, aged 11 to 24 (N=13), were initially assessed on the two perspective taking tasks, then exposed to spatial play activities for 30 minutes twice a week for eight weeks, before receiving a final assessment on both tasks. A paired samples t-test was conducted to compare three-mountain task scores and found mean retest scores (M=15.3) were significantly larger than the mean for initial scores (M=13.2); t(12)=-2.5, p=0.028. The mean for retest scores on the dog task (M=17.8) were also significantly greater than the mean for initial scores (M=15.2); t(12)=-2.64, p=0.022. Thus, individuals with DS displayed improvement in spatial perspective taking over the course of eight week spatial play training.