The effect of object alignment on the representation of depth in young children's drawings.

Light and Humphreys (1981, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 31, 521-530) provided evidence that young children's drawings, despite infrequently showing view-specific occlusion, do systematically reflect spatial relations within an array. The present research tested the hypothesis that young children's preferences for canonical "best views" interact with array-faithful tendencies to increase early uses of occlusion. Forty-three children between 4 and 7 years of age drew arrays like Light and Humphreys' end-to-end alignments, with end-on views of objects in depth, and arrays aligned side-to-side, with canonical side-views of objects in depth. Significantly fewer single-object, view-specific occlusions were produced for end-to-end than for side-to-side alignments. Nevertheless, the former reveal that more children are able to use the vertical dimension to depict multiple objects in depth. Other comparisons suggest an interaction in multiple-object depictions of canonicality with spatial dimension and graphic complexity.     

The use of children's drawings in multiple family group therapy

This paper describes the advantages, difficulties and techniques of including young children in multiple family group therapy (MFGT). Multiple family group therapy consists of weekly sessions where three or more families meet conjointly with a therapist or cotherapists. Clinical vignettes demonstrate how to use children's drawings with parents to improve family communication. The efficiency of MFGT is compared to family therapy or individual therapy. The effective use of this modality with some children under 10 years is discussed.This research was supported in part by Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration Psychiatry Education Branch Grant MH 13882 from the National Institute of Mental Health.     

Sexual ambiguity in children's human figure drawings

Four hundred sixty-one children in grades 5-9 drew a person and indicated the sex of their human figure drawing. A significant number (8%) of children were unable to classify their drawings as to sex; the frequency of uncertainty did not vary with grade or sex of child. Inability to determine the sex of one's own drawing is hypothesized to be a conceptual rather than a perceptual problem, and to reflect uncertainty about the essence of sexual identification.     

The relationship between children's drawings and preferences for alternative depictions of a familiar object

Little attention has been paid to children's evaluations of their own drawings and those of others. This study aimed to determine whether young children are satisfied with their own method of portraying a familiar object, or whether they would ideally like to draw in a more advanced way, but are hampered by production deficiencies from achieving this aim. Children aged 4 to 9 years produced drawings of a house and expressed preferences concerning an experimental series of house drawings, in which features typically found in drawings by children of different ages were systematically varied. It was found that children of all ages preferred those drawings which had most features in common with their own productions, suggesting that they are satisfied with their own drawings and may actually choose to draw in the way that they do. The conclusions of other studies using this paradigm are questioned on the grounds that they contain methodological weaknesses, particularly with respect to design of their preference stimuli.     

The effect of affective characterizations on the size of children's drawings

Previous research has yielded conflicting findings about the existence and the direction of the size changes which occur in children's drawings when they are asked to draw topics which have been given an affective characterization. The present study was designed to investigate whether children scale up the size of drawings of topics which have been given a positive characterization, and scale down the size of drawings of topics which have been given a negative characterization. The participants were 258 children aged between 4 and 11 years who completed three drawings of either a man, a dog or a tree. Each child drew a baseline drawing of a neutrally characterized figure, and two further drawings of a positively and a negatively characterized version of the same figure. It was found that the children drew the positively characterized topics larger than the neutrally characterized topics, and reduced the size of the negatively characterized topics relative to the baseline drawings. These patterns occurred at all ages and with all three drawing topics. Two possible explanations of the findings are discussed: the operation of an appetitive‐defensive mechanism in children, and the acquisition of pictorial conventions.     

Graphic indicators of pedagogic style in Greek children's drawings

311 Greek children's drawings of classroom life were employed to investigate the diagnostic validity of this measure in identifying teachers' pedagogic style. The sample was divided into three age groups, 6-, 8-, and 10-yr. olds, who were asked to draw pictures of themselves and their teachers in their classroom. Drawings were scored using as criteria the four graphic indicators (ratings of size, detailing, centrality, and social distance) proposed by Aronsson and Anderson in 1996. Analysis showed three out of the four indicators discriminated teacher-centered vs student-centered pedagogic style. More specifically, in the teacher-centered setting children drew the teacher of dominant size, in a central position, and as remote, while in the student-centered setting the teacher was depicted closer to the student, in a less central position, and less emphasized relative to the student. The findings are discussed with respect to the absence of age-related effects and the possibility of using children's drawings of classroom life as a measure for tapping into children's representations of pedagogic style.     

Rigidity in children's drawings and its relation with representational change

Four studies tested the application of to the drawing domain. In particular, we tested her claim that young children are inhibited in their attempts at changing their graphic representations (representational change) due to being constrained by the order in which the elements of the representation are drawn (procedural rigidity). The first study required 60 children (4- to 6-year-olds and an older comparison group of 8-year-olds) to make three drawings of a familiar and novel topic. From these drawings each child was measured for procedural rigidity. In a further drawing the child was asked to modify their usual representation of each topic. Regression analyses revealed procedural rigidity levels were not predictive of manipulation performance. A second study, testing 75 4- to 6-year-olds and a third study, testing 30 3- to 4-year-olds, revealed that when young children were specifically asked to manipulate rigid sub-procedures on a familiar topic they were indeed able to do so. Finally, a fourth study (testing 40 5-year-olds and 40 8-year-olds) removed the notational trace in drawing (a possible aid for procedural interruption) but this still produced no evidence of a relation between procedural rigidity and representational change. We suggest how the concept of procedural rigidity might be re-interpreted for the drawing domain so that the RR model can remain as a domain-general theory of cognitive development. We also suggest the development of information processing may be crucial for flexibility in drawing.     

The social representation of material culture and gender in children's books

This study examined the gender-typed portrayal of material culture in Caldecott Award children's books published between 1937 and 1989. Analyses of illustrations found that a larger proportion of female characters was shown using household artifacts, and a larger proportion of male characters was depicted using nondomestic production artifacts. Contrast analyses revealed no change over time in the proportions of female characters portrayed using household and production artifacts. Children's exposure to this representation may result in gender-linked modeling effects on preferences and skills related to technology and other material culture.Portions of this research were presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Society, June 21, 1992, San Diego, CA. The authors wish to thank Loretta Rieser-Danner, Leigh Shaffer, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts.     

Spatial depth relationships in young children's drawings

Previous research suggests that young children do not attempt to represent depth relationships between objects in their drawings. The present study, however, showed that when both objects are visible and the children's attention is drawn to the depth relationship between them, most 5-, 6-, and 7-year-olds do attempt to portray this relationship.     

Attachment-based classifications of children's family drawings: psychometric properties and relations with children's adjustment in kindergarten.

Investigated an attachment-based theoretical framework and classification system, introduced by Kaplan and Main (1986), for interpreting children's family drawings. This study concentrated on the psychometric properties of the system and the relation between drawings classified using this system and teacher ratings of classroom social-emotional and behavioral functioning, controlling for child age, ethnic status, intelligence, and fine motor skills. This nonclinical sample consisted of 200 kindergarten children of diverse racial and socioeconomic status (SES). Limited support for reliability of this classification system was obtained. Kappas for overall classifications of drawings (e.g., secure) exceeded .80 and mean kappa for discrete drawing features (e.g., figures with smiles) was .82. Coders' endorsement of the presence of certain discrete drawing features predicted their overall classification at 82.5% accuracy. Drawing classification was related to teacher ratings of classroom functioning independent of child age, sex, race, SES, intelligence, and fine motor skills (with p values for the multivariate effects ranging from .043-.001). Results are discussed in terms of the psychometric properties of this system for classifying children's representations of family and the limitations of family drawing techniques for young children.     

The young child's representation of depth in drawing: process and product

Two experiments are reported from a series of studies in which plain blocks of various sizes were presented in various spatial orientations to children aged between 3 and 8 years in an attempt to establish how they represent three-dimensional spatial relations pictorially. The major results were that young children represent depth in the array vertically in the picture plane. Two important findings were that even from an early age drawings contain "view-centered" information and that children differentiate between the relative positions of objects in the array by the temporal order of their drawing. These results show the importance of studying the drawing process as well as its product.     

Experimenter effects on children's understanding of false drawings and false beliefs

Two experiments were conducted in which a variant of J. McGarrigle and M. Donaldson's (1975) "Naughty Teddy" intervention was applied to children's understanding of false drawings and false beliefs. The results showed that preschool children's understanding of the contents of an out-of-date drawing improved when the drawing was made by a capricious agent ("Naughty Snakey" glove puppet) rather than by the experimenter. The children's performance on a false belief task also improved when the events that set up the false belief were the result of the actions of the glove puppet. The results are discussed in terms of the role of children's sensitivity to the pragmatics of interactions in their development of a theory of mind.