While this article by Randall Stross doesn’t mention exact correlations, I’m a believer in the premise that legos are a valuable training tool (gender aside). With my oldest now nine, I’ve been doing research on how best to start him programming as well.
Related
this was previously published in March 2008 in Dealerscope Magazine:
In The Short View in yesterday’s FT James Mackintosh writes
Institutions are increasingly leveraging AI to rethink how they interact