Feeling the distance: The relationship between emotion regulation and spatial ability in childhood / Eirini FLOURI in Development and Psychopathology, 37-3 (August 2025)  

Public ISBD [article]  inDevelopment and Psychopathology > 37-3 (August 2025) . - p.1272-1279 Titre : Feeling the distance: The relationship between emotion regulation and spatial ability in childhood Type de document : Texte imprimé et/ou numérique Auteurs : Eirini FLOURI, Auteur ; Dimitris I. TSOMOKOS, Auteur Article en page(s) : p.1272-1279 Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : Spatial cognition  cognitive development  emotional development  emotional dysregulation Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Research has shown experimentally that if children are taught to use language to create distance (socially, physically, and temporarily) when they revisit a potentially traumatic experience they reduce the intensity of their emotions. Building on this, this study was carried out to explore whether children with better spatial skills are better at such downregulation because of their very aptitude in understanding the concept of distance. Using data from a general-population birth cohort in the UK, the study examined the bidirectional association between emotional dysregulation and spatial ability among children aged 5 and 7 years. The findings reveal a significant reciprocal relationship even after adjusting for family, contextual, and individual confounders including verbal ability: spatial skills at age 5 years were inversely related to emotional dysregulation at age 7 years, and conversely, greater emotional dysregulation at age 5 years was associated with poorer spatial ability at age 7 years. The two paths were equally strong and there was no evidence of differences between them on the basis of sex. Our results suggest that enhancing spatial abilities could be a potential avenue for supporting emotion regulation in middle childhood. En ligne : https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/7FD78878DDCA5953D53DBEE115CC652A Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=564 [article] Feeling the distance: The relationship between emotion regulation and spatial ability in childhood [Texte imprimé et/ou numérique] / Eirini FLOURI, Auteur ; Dimitris I. TSOMOKOS, Auteur . - p.1272-1279. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Development and Psychopathology > 37-3 (August 2025) . - p.1272-1279 Mots-clés : Spatial cognition  cognitive development  emotional development  emotional dysregulation Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Research has shown experimentally that if children are taught to use language to create distance (socially, physically, and temporarily) when they revisit a potentially traumatic experience they reduce the intensity of their emotions. Building on this, this study was carried out to explore whether children with better spatial skills are better at such downregulation because of their very aptitude in understanding the concept of distance. Using data from a general-population birth cohort in the UK, the study examined the bidirectional association between emotional dysregulation and spatial ability among children aged 5 and 7 years. The findings reveal a significant reciprocal relationship even after adjusting for family, contextual, and individual confounders including verbal ability: spatial skills at age 5 years were inversely related to emotional dysregulation at age 7 years, and conversely, greater emotional dysregulation at age 5 years was associated with poorer spatial ability at age 7 years. The two paths were equally strong and there was no evidence of differences between them on the basis of sex. Our results suggest that enhancing spatial abilities could be a potential avenue for supporting emotion regulation in middle childhood. En ligne : https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/7FD78878DDCA5953D53DBEE115CC652A Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=564

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