Making sense of place

Description:

How, why and at what age children acquire an understanding of place is proving a difficult issue to uncover. A growing school of thought argues that the environmental capability of children needs to be reassessed, and a burgeoning body of empirical evidence has shown that the environmental skills and competence of children have been underestimated. This has occurred partly because of an uncritical acceptance of the Piagetian state theory of human development and partly because of an over-reliance on novel, small-scale laboratory tests, divorced from the child's world of experience. This book which is clearly written and generously illustrated, unravels how children make sense of place. It demonstrates that, either at birth or shortly after, all children are natural environmental mappers and protogeographers. Its author, a geographer who is equally at ease with psychological research, also makes valuable suggestions on how adults can make provisions for play and schooling which take into account children's environmental needs and capabilities. This is the most comprehensive, and current, work to date on the psychology of children's understanding of geography.

subjects: Geographical perception in children,  Perception in children,  Space Perception,  Orientation,  Environment,  Infant,  Child