Children's spontaneous drawings : a normative study : an exploratory study of the drawings of children aged five to ten years.

The purpose of this investigation was to study the spontaneous drawings of Tasmanian Primary School children from five to ten years of age with a view to discovering the typical usage of form, colour and content at each age level. An analysis of spontaneous drawings made in the classroom situation by the subjects of the study who were 1090 children (573 boys, 517 girls) from five to ten years was carried out. These children were the total population (within the age range) of two large Hobart Primary Schools. The frequencies obtained for the different formal, colour and content categories were tabulated and discussed with particular reference to the findings and conclusions of other investigators. From these results a tentative developmental scale was drawn up in terms of each age level and for boys and girls separately. The relation of maturity and intelligence to the various categories was examined. It appeared that while developmental trends were present, the correlation of intelligence with the categories was not high enough to explain deviation from the general pattern. This increases the probability that emotional factors are important in cases which show deviation from the developmental norm in their drawings. As no direct evidence of the operation of emotional factors was available possible further studies and methods for study were indicated.