The importance of listening to children’s perspectives has been emphasised in a wide range of recent research, using a variety of strategies. This paper explores the use of drawing as a strategy to engage with young children around the topic of starting school. It describes the approaches we have used, examines the benefits and challenges we have encountered and discusses implications of using drawings as a strategy for engaging with young children (aged 4–6 years) in research.

Making Meaning: Children's Perspectives Expressed through Drawings.

1. A Historical Perspective on Children's Drawings 2. Children's Drawings in Context 3. Working with Children and Their Drawings 4. Developmental Aspects of Children's Drawings 5. Emotional Content of Children's Drawings 6. Interpersonal Aspects of Children's Drawings 7. Somatic and Spiritual Aspects of Children's Drawings 8. Ethical Considerations and Children's Drawings Appendix: Materials and Resources.

Understanding Children's Drawings

Part I: The Art and Science of Art Therapy. Vick, A Brief History of Art Therapy. Malchiodi, Art Therapy and the Brain. Kaplan, Art-based Assessments. Part II: Clinical Approaches to Art Therapy. Malchiodi, Psychoanalytic, Analytic, and Object Relations Approaches. Malchiodi, Humanistic Approaches. Rozum, Malchiodi, Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches. Riley, Malchiodi, Solution-focused and Narrative Approaches. Malchiodi, Kim, Choi, Developmental Art Therapy. Malchiodi, Expressive Arts Therapy and Multimodal Approaches. Part III: Clinical Applications with Children and Adolescents. Tanaka, Kakuyama, Urhausen, Drawing and Storytelling as Psychotherapy with Children. Steele, Using Drawing in Short-term Trauma Resolution. Gil, Art and Play Therapy with Sexually Abused Children. Cohen-Liebman, Drawings in Forensic Investigations of Child Sexual Abuse. Safran, An Art Therapy Approach to Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Gabriels, Art Therapy with Children Who Have Autism and their Families. Councill, Medical Art Therapy with Children. Riley, Using Art Therapy to Address Adolescent Depression. Phillips, Working with Adolescents' Violent Imagery. Part IV: Clinical Applications with Adults. Gladding, Newsome, Art in Counseling. Steinhardt, Sandplay Therapy and Art Therapy with Adults. Spaniol, Art Therapy with Adults with Severe Mental Illness. Wilson, Art Therapy in Addictions Treatment: Creativity and Shame Reduction. Wald, Clinical Art Therapy with Older Adults. Part V: Clinical Applications with Groups, Families, and Couples. Waller, Group Art Therapy: An Interactive Approach. Liebmann, Developing Games, Activities, and Themes for Art Therapy Groups. Klorer, Sexually Abused Children: Group Approaches. Malchiodi, Using Art Therapy with Medical Support Groups. Riley, Malchiodi, Family Art Therapy. Hoshino, Multicultural Art Therapy with Families. Riley, Art Therapy with Couples. Appendix I: Art-based Assessments: Mills, The Diagnostic Drawing Series. Silver, The Silver Drawing Test of Cognition and Emotion. Gantt, Tabone, The Formal Elements Art Therapy Scale and "Draw a Person Picking an Apple from a Tree." Cox, The MARI Assessment. Appendix II: Scope of Practice, Education, Supervision, Standards of Practice, and Ethics.

Handbook of Art Therapy

The Development of Locative Expressions in English, Italian, Serbo-Croatian, and Turkish. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, No. 13.

The ability of children between the ages of 2; 0 and 4; 8 to produce locative pre- or postpositions was investigated in English, Italian, Serbo-Croatian, and Turkish. Across languages, there was a general order of development: (1) ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘under’, and ‘beside’, (2) ‘between’, ‘back’ and ‘front’ with featured objects, (3) ‘back’ and ‘front’ with non-featured objects. This order of development is discussed in terms of nonlinguistic growth in conceptual ability. Language-specific differences in the general pattern of development are discussed in terms of a number of linguistic factors which may facilitate or retard the child's discovery of the linguistic means for encoding concepts.

The development of locative expressions in English, Italian, Serbo-Croatian and Turkish

The participants were 120 UK and 120 Japanese children. There were two age groups (7-year-olds and 11-year-olds) with equal numbers of boys and girls in each. Each child drew three figures: a man standing and facing the viewer, a man running towards the right, and a man running towards the viewer. The older children's figures were rated more highly than those of younger children, supporting previous research findings. Girls' figures received higher ratings than those of boys, contradicting previous claims that boys are more flexible in their drawings of figures in action. Japanese children's figures received higher ratings than those in the UK, suggesting that Japanese children are influenced by a greater exposure to graphic images in their school art curriculum and the widespread popularity of manga comics. The prediction that Japanese boys would make the greatest adaptations to their figures (since manga comics for boys contain more action figures) was not supported. As well as gaining higher ratings, the older children also constructed their figures in more complex ways than did the younger children. The figures drawn by girls and by the Japanese children were not constructed differently from those of boys or UK children; their higher ratings were attributed to their greater facility in the execution of their constructions.

Children's human figure drawings in the UK and Japan: The effects of age, sex and culture

A series of five studies was designed to investigate children's representation of a depth‐relationship on a two‐dimensional surface. Subjects ranged from 4 to 10 years and also included adult samples. It was found that if a model is present and their attention is specifically drawn to it, young children do attempt to draw one object behind another. When simple objects are used, their technique is to place the two elements vertically, but separate, on the page. The ‘adult’ strategy of partial occlusion did not emerge until at least age 8. The tendency to separate the elements was not a function of a drawing task; ‘separate’ arrangements were also chosen in a selection task. Neither was it connected with a reluctance to represent a partially occluded whole object with an incomplete shape; a disc task also led to separation in the same way as the drawing and selection tasks. Finally, a task in which the idea of one object being partially hidden by the nearer was inherent to the task itself produced ...

One Thing Behind Another: problems of representation in children's drawings

Forty‐two children aged between 2 years and 4 years 11 months were asked to draw a person. Their drawings were categorised as (1) scribbles, (2) distinct forms, (3) tadpoles, (4) transitional and (5) conventional figures. The first representational figures, the tadpoles, appeared at an average age of 3 years 1 month. It was predicted that if tadpole figures result from the complexity of the task rather than from a conceptual difficulty then tasks with reduced demands (a copying task, a jig‐saw task, and a dictation task) should facilitate the drawing of conventional figures. In fact, few conventional figures were produced and the tadpole form was highly resistant across the different tasks. Six of the children were followed longitudinally over a one‐year period from a pre‐representational to a conventional stage of human figure drawing. Spontaneous drawings as well as drawings from six test sessions were collected in order to check whether all children drew ‘tadpole’ forms before they produced co...

Young Children's Human Figure Drawing: cross‐sectional and longitudinal studies

Background Although there is a national curriculum for art education in the UK there are also alternative approaches in the private sector This paper addresses the issue of the effect of these approaches on children's drawing ability Aim To compare the drawing ability in three drawing tasks of children in Steiner, Montessori and traditional schools Sample The participants were 60 school children between the ages of 5;11 and 7;2 Twenty children were tested in each type of school Method Each child completed three drawings: a free drawing, a scene and an observational drawing Results As predicted, the free and scene drawings of children in the Steiner school were rated more highly than those of children in Montessori and traditional schools Steiner children's use of colour was also rated more highly, although they did not use more colours than the other children Steiner children used significantly more fantasy topics in their free drawings Further observation indicated that the Steiner children were better at using the whole page and organising their drawings into a scene; their drawings were also more detailed Contrary to previous research Montessori children did not draw more inanimate objects and geometrical shapes or fewer people than other children Also, contrary to the prediction, Steiner children were significantly better rather than worse than other children at observational drawing Conclusion The results suggest that the approach to art education in Steiner schools is conducive not only to more highly rated imaginative drawings in terms of general drawing ability and use of colour but also to more accurate and detailed observational drawings

The effect of three different educational approaches on children's drawing ability: Steiner, Montessori and traditional

A group of 13 children with autism (mean CA = 13:4 and non-verbal MA = 8:3) were tested on a wide range of drawing tasks. Their performance was compared with 13 normal children (mean CA = 13:4 and mean non-verbal MA = 14:3), 13 younger normal children (mean CA = 6: 10 and mean non-verbal MA = 8: 5) and 13 Down's syndrome (DS) children (mean CA = 16:1 and mean non-verbal MA = 7:9). The children with autism did not perform any higher than their mental age controls on any individual task; overall, their visual realism scores were significantly lower than those of their chronological and mental age controls, although slightly higher than those of the DS children. It appears that non-gifted children with autism do not possess any special aptitude for drawing

Maureen V. Cox

Papers

Children's human figure drawings in the UK and Japan: The effects of age, sex and culture

One Thing Behind Another: problems of representation in children's drawings

Young Children's Human Figure Drawing: cross‐sectional and longitudinal studies

The effect of three different educational approaches on children's drawing ability: Steiner, Montessori and traditional

Visual realism in the drawings of autistic, Down's syndrome and normal children