Peer-reviewed article
The relations between executive function, spatial skills, and building complexity during block play in young children.
Yitong Jiang, Eunji Kong, Frankie Butler, Emily Wilke, Tracy Zehner et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how executive function and spatial skills relate to block-building complexity in 142 preschoolers aged around 4-5 years. Children participated in either free play or semi-structured block play sessions twice weekly for eight weeks. Spatial skills were positively associated with building complexity, and semi-structured play with picture prompts showed improvement in building complexity after an initial decline, while free play did not show clear patterns.
Key points
- Children's baseline spatial skills were significantly positively associated with their average building complexity during block play
- Semi-structured conditions with picture prompts showed an initial decline followed by improvement in building complexity
- Free play conditions did not show clear patterns in building complexity over the 8-week intervention
- Marginally significant positive associations were found between baseline executive function and developmental change in building complexity
- Block play sessions occurred twice weekly for 8 weeks in small groups of 15 minutes
Limitations
The document does not specify the country or region where the study was conducted. The study only examines associations and trajectories without establishing causal mechanisms, and the lack of clear patterns in the free play condition limits conclusions about unstructured play effectiveness.
Abstract
This study investigated the associations between executive function (EF), spatial skills, and both the average levels and developmental trajectories of building complexity in preschoolers during block play, across two instructional contexts. Data were drawn from a large block play intervention study that included three conditions: free play, semi-structured, and business-as-usual (BAU). Intervention included 15-minute small group sessions that occurred twice per week for eight weeks. The present sample focused on 142 preschoolers (Mage = 54 months) who were randomly assigned to the free play and semi-structured conditions. Only participants in these two conditions engaged in block-play sessions, thereby yielding data on block-building complexity. Results indicated that children in both conditions generally showed a decline in building complexity scores over the 8-week intervention. However, after the introduction of picture prompts, children in the semi-structured condition exhibited an initial decline followed by subsequent improvement in block building complexity, whereas no clear patterns were observed in the free play condition. There was a significant positive association between children's baseline spatial skills and their average building complexity across the intervention, which aligned with the hypothesis. Marginally significant positive associations were observed between baseline aggregate EF and the developmental change of building complexity over the course of the intervention. Implications for future research are discussed.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Block play intervention in two conditions: free play (15-minute small group sessions twice weekly for 8 weeks) and semi-structured play with picture prompts (same frequency and duration)
- Population
- 142 preschoolers, mean age 54 months, randomly assigned to conditions
Key finding
Semi-structured play with picture prompts showed initial decline then improvement in building complexity
Jiang et al. · PubMed (US National Library of Medicine) · 22 Aug 2026