Childrens Drawings
What do children’s drawings tell us about children’s minds?
The topic of children’s drawings and their relation to a child’s cognitive processes, particularly thoughts is a topic of great interest. It is widely believed that children often express feelings, thoughts and messages which they cannot express through words through drawing pictures. This essay reviews previous research conducted on children’s drawings and aims to assess what exactly it tells us about their minds and what messages they are putting down in drawings. Following an overview of drawing and the cognitive development, this essay evaluates a selection of relevant research studies into children’s drawings and minds and aims to understand some specific symbols which are often drawn by young children and the meaning of these graphic images.
According to Thomas & Silk (1990), children’s drawings have a variety of different purposes varying from bringing pleasure and enjoyment to themselves, decorating walls and expressing feelings and showing others how they feel about certain objects or people. N.R. Smith (1973) believes that the child begins the drawing with no intention or symbolisation, but as the drawing progresses a pattern is made and the child sees a representation and then proceeds to make the rest of the drawing shift towards this representation and builds on that.
The basic pattern of children’s development of drawings begins at scribbles which appear from 12 months. The scribbles are non-representational and just involve the progressive control of movement. These scribbles tend to be viewed as gestures rather than drawing in true sense of the world according to Vygotsky. Arnheim (1956) believes that the earliest scribbles are a motor impulse, this simply means the child has no intention to draw a representation of an object or event it is just a coincidence. They begin to progress from 20 months of age where the scribbles being to become representational and the marks stand for
The topic of children’s drawings and their relation to a child’s cognitive processes, particularly thoughts is a topic of great interest. It is widely believed that children often express feelings, thoughts and messages which they cannot express through words through drawing pictures. This essay reviews previous research conducted on children’s drawings and aims to assess what exactly it tells us about their minds and what messages they are putting down in drawings. Following an overview of drawing and the cognitive development, this essay evaluates a selection of relevant research studies into children’s drawings and minds and aims to understand some specific symbols which are often drawn by young children and the meaning of these graphic images.
According to Thomas & Silk (1990), children’s drawings have a variety of different purposes varying from bringing pleasure and enjoyment to themselves, decorating walls and expressing feelings and showing others how they feel about certain objects or people. N.R. Smith (1973) believes that the child begins the drawing with no intention or symbolisation, but as the drawing progresses a pattern is made and the child sees a representation and then proceeds to make the rest of the drawing shift towards this representation and builds on that.
The basic pattern of children’s development of drawings begins at scribbles which appear from 12 months. The scribbles are non-representational and just involve the progressive control of movement. These scribbles tend to be viewed as gestures rather than drawing in true sense of the world according to Vygotsky. Arnheim (1956) believes that the earliest scribbles are a motor impulse, this simply means the child has no intention to draw a representation of an object or event it is just a coincidence. They begin to progress from 20 months of age where the scribbles being to become representational and the marks stand for
References: Barret, Beaumont & Jennett. (1985). The effect of instructions on view-specificity in young children’s drawing and picture selection. The British Psychological Society, 8 (4), 393-400. Burkitt, E. & Davis, A. (2003). Children’s colour choices for completing drawings of affectively characterised topics. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 44, 445-455. Burkitt, E. (2004). Drawing conclusions from children’s art. The Psychologist, 17, 566-568. Cherney et al Chia, N. (2006, October 26). Understand your children through their drawings. LESNET Web Blog. Retrieved December 12, 2012, from http://www.lsesnet.com/blog/?p=28 Freeman, N, H Grieve, R. & Hughes, M. (1991). Understanding children. 140-144. Luquet. (1927). Stage Theory of Drawing Meadows, S Thomas, G. & Silk,A. (1990). An introduction to the psychology of children’s drawings.