Abstract: Children’s spatial reorientation is the ability that the disorientated individuals reorient themselves and are able to find the hidden object after disorientation. Although the modular theory, the adaptive combination theory and the image-matching theory have made some explanations on children’s spatial reorientation behaviors, these three theories are incompatible with each other. Besides, all of their explanations are limited to some extent since none of them can explain the effects of language on the integration of geometric and non-geometric information, the effects of reference frame and enclosure size on children’s spatial reorientation behaviors as well as early sex differences in spatial reorientation. Future researches should take into consideration of the ecological validity of experiment condition, the regularity of the environment, the directness and indirectness of geometric information and study how to integrate these three theories.

Key words: children, spatial reorientation, modular theory, adaptive combination theory, image-matching theory