Child and Adult Reports of Graphic Strategies Used to Portray Figures with Contrasting Emotional Characteristics

This study assessed children's graphic flexibility and their ability to report on their use of drawing strategies when drawing characterized figures. 253 children (129 boys, 124 girls) aged between 4 years 3 months and 11 year 10 months formed three groups, either drawing a man, a dog or a tree. Each group was asked to draw three emotionally contrasting versions of the topics. The children's self-reported views about their drawing strategies and adults' judgements of the children's use of drawing strategies were content analyzed and compared. It was found that the children's verbal reports and the adults' observations were very similar to each other, at all ages. Moreover, children utilized a range of drawing strategies flexibly at all ages. It is argued that Karmiloff-Smith's (1992) Representational Redescription Model may underestimate not only young children's graphic flexibility but also their ability to provide verbal reports on their own drawing behaviour.