American and Israeli toddler-caregiver dyads (mean age of toddler = 26 months) were presented with naturalistic tasks in which they must watch a short video (N = 97) or concoct a visual story together (N = 66). English-speaking American caregivers were more likely to use left-to-right spatial structuring than right-to-left, especially for well-ordered letters and numbers. Hebrew-speaking Israeli parents were more likely than Americans to use right-to-left spatial structuring, especially for letters. When constructing a pictorial narrative for their children, Americans were more likely to place pictures from left to right than Israelis. These spatial structure biases exhibited by caregivers are a potential route for the development of spatial biases in early childhood, before children have developed automatic reading and writing habits.
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