An Introduction to the Psychology of Children's Drawings

Children's drawings are intriguing. Why, for example, do children draw people with arms sticking out of the side of their heads? Recent research in the study of children's art suggests that these apparent oddities are not just random mistakes, but reflect children's orderly and often thoughful attempts at pictorial representation. This concise book reviews psychological theories of children's drawings and their relation to emotional and cognitive development. Long-established assumptions that "children draw what they know," or that drawings are expressions of emotional experience or unconscious wishes, are critically appraised. Unlike many specialized works, this book does not present just one approach to the exclusion of others, but attempts a dispassionate review of all major theories and aspects of this fascinating subject. Organized around a series of simple questions about children's drawings, the book covers material from philosophy, perception studies, clinical psychology, art, and aesthetics as well as from child development and cognitive psychology.