The effect of development, manipulation of objects, and verbal cues on the spacial representation in young children's drawings

This study examined the effect of cognitive and perceptual development, manipulation of objects, and verbal cues on preschooler's spacial representation in observational drawing. Children from three developmental levels, four-, five-, and six-year-olds were given the task to draw a transparent object in front of an opaque object. The experimental variables included various levels of object examination and instruction about specific features of spatial information required to represent objects overlapped in drawing. The results supported previous studies that show development to be a predominant factor of spatial representation in children's drawings. The results also revealed that preschoolers acquire skills of spatial representation in drawing at a rapid and constant rate between the three developmental levels. Significant comparisons for instructional method indicated that past research in children's graphic spatial representation does not give enough supportive evidence for the preschoolers' capabilities to analyze visual structures necessary for indicating overlap in drawing. Implications for early childhood art education are derived from the results of the study.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio