Research shows children’s ability to hit moving targets is associated with their mathematics attainment. The link may result from common brain areas processing both spatial and mathematical operations. Alternatively, it may emerge from the brain’s ability to inhibit inappropriate responses. We developed a web-based assessment of spatial processing and inhibitory control delivered as a video game to hundreds of adolescents in Bradford UK.
We found evidence that spatial processing and inhibition independently predicted maths attainment in teenagers. In future, this highly scalable assessment may help characterize and identify cognitive deficiencies in adolescents that act as barriers to their health and academic success. Moreover, the protocols and methods developed in this study have now been adopted by BiB: Age of Wonder, the adolescent arm of a longitudinal birth-cohort study including ~30,000 teenagers.
