Some parents will buy any high-tech toy if they think it will help their child, but researchers said puzzles help children with math-related skills.
一些家长只要认为对孩子有益，他们就会购买任何高科技玩具，但研究人员认为拼图有助于提高孩子们的数学相关技能。

Psychologist Susan Levine, an expert on mathematics development in young children the University of Chicago, found children who play with puzzles between ages 2 and 4 later develop better spatial skills. Puzzle play was found to be a significant predictor of cognition after controlling for differences in parents’ income, education and the amount of parent talk, Levine said.
芝加哥大学儿童数学发展专家心理学家苏珊·莱文发现，在2岁到4岁之间玩拼图游戏的孩子们随后会发展出更好的空间技能。莱文说，在避免了父母收入、教育程度和父母交谈量的差异后，拼图游戏被认为是认知能力的一个重要预测因素。

The researchers analyzed video recordings of 53 child-parent pairs during everyday activities at home and found children who play with puzzles between 26 and 46 months of age have better spatial skills when assessed at 54 months of age.
研究人员分析了53对父母与子女在家庭日常活动中的视频记录，发现26至46个月之间玩拼图游戏的孩子在54个月大时空间技能更好。

“The children who played with puzzles performed better than those who did not, on tasks that assessed their ability to rotate and translate shapes,” Levine said in a statement.
“玩拼图游戏的孩子在评估他们旋转和变换形状能力要比没有玩拼图游戏的孩子好，”莱文在一份声明中说。

The parents were asked to interact with their children as they normally would, and about half of children in the study played with puzzles at one time. Higher-income parents tended to have children play with puzzles more frequently, and both boys and girls who played with puzzles had better spatial skills. However, boys tended to play with more complex puzzles than girls, and the parents of boys provided more spatial language and were more active during puzzle play than parents of girls.
研究人员要求父母像平时一样与孩子互动，研究中约有一半的孩子曾玩过拼图游戏。高收入的父母往往让孩子多玩些拼图，玩拼图的男孩和女孩都会有更好的空间技能。不过，男孩往往玩的拼图比女孩的更复杂，男孩的父母在玩拼图游戏时比女孩的父母提供了更多的空间语言，也更活跃。

The findings were published in the journal Developmental Science.
研究结果发表在《发展科学》杂志上。