Why do children draw?
- Release stress
- To communicate our creativity
- for children to develop motor skills
Define externalization
- Getting negative feelings out of our inner world
State the stages
- Doodling
- The appearance of ancestral forms
- Intellectual realism
- Sensual realism
- Contemplative realism
1.DOODLING
Drawing as an indicator
- Ages 1-2 years
- The child watches the movement and makes markes on the surface
- Eye-hand coordination where the hand guides the eye
- This is positive for children as it gives joy
- The drawing has no meaning
- There are different types:
1. The era of unedited doodles
2. Swinging doodle: disciplined movements
3. Block doodle: Drawing is limited to a part of the page
4. Closed doodle: child tries to create a closed whole
Describe the development of reporting
- 2-3 year olds start to give meaning to their drawings.
- At first, they start to give meaning to the finished doodle mainly by looking at the environment
- The meaning is associative and can be changed at any time
2.The appearance of ancestral forms
Contradiction: The child sees and experiences an unstructured whole (syncretic thinking) but can only draw what they see in detail
- They use schemas in their drawings at this stage
Juxtaposition: A collective name for the representational characteristics of the period for instance, the parent is bigger than the house in the drawing. This is because size is not an important factor in this stage but the emotional connection is
- At 3-4 years, the intention to depict appears
- 4-6years ancestral forms differenciate
3.Intellectual realism
- ages 5-6years
- The child draws according to reality
- Representation: Ideovisual i.e imagination-driven
- Characterised by transparency and schemas become clearer
- Drawings are easily recognisable
4.Sensual realism
- Ages 7-9years
- Subjectivity is reduced and the drawing becomes more like a reality
- Transparency disappears, the shapes of the human body become more realistic and proportionate
- Colours become more conventional
- Depicting objects in the right position is still a problem
5.Contemplative realism
- Ages 10-12 years
- Representation of the imagination is reduced
- The child is trying to get closer to reality
- Drawing talent is well recognised
- Talented children go through the same stages but they pass through them much more quickly
What occurs over 12 years
- Copying skills improve significantly
- Children become more skilled at representing perspective and spatial dimensions
- However as critical thinking skills develop,children lose interest in drawing
Describe drawing tests
- They can act as a tool in making a diagnosis
- It is an opportunity to communicate feelings, experiences
- It can be used to release from painful feelings
- Trauma processing (externalization)
- It can also be important to know what the child is doing while drawing : what they say about the drawing, what is important to them
- Most common methods: Free drawing, drawing a person e.t.c
- example is the 4 tree test
What is disproportionality
- This indicates inner emotional tension
- e.g the grumpy neighbor is disproportionately big
FREE DRAWING:
Drawing tests
- Analysis criteria:
- topic
- technique
- use of colours
- communication
- good for contact
They take note of the:
1. The background data
2. The behaviour of the person during the drawing test
3. The drawing
Describe Florence Laura Goodenough
- Her analysis led to the development of
“Draw a person” Test - This method showed a significant correlation with the level of intellectual development, by the end of preschool years
