The Development of Compositional Strategies in Children's Drawings

The development of compositional strategies in children's drawings was studied in a sample of 411 children ranging in age from 3 to 14 years. Each of the participants was asked to make four drawings: his/her family, children playing, a birthday party, and a garden with trees, flowers, and a pond. The results reveal a clear development pattern that is age-dependent as well as task-dependent and can best be described in terms of two organizing principles: an alignment of figures within a horizontal-vertical grid, and a centric system that privileges the center of the page and leads to various forms of symmetry. A child's earliest efforts are marked by the random placement of shapes across the page, followed by a tendency to draw figures in close proximity to one another. Alignment of figures emerges next, as directionality imposes a new order (i.e., the figures are now drawn side by side). The resulting line-up creates a primitive sense of "belongingness" among the figures. With the application of a principle of similarity, the earlier undifferentiated alignment gives way to a more ordered arrangement of similar figures across the horizontal axis, which is further enhanced by the introduction of standlines that anchor the figures. Along with the invention of alignment strategies, the centric principle of organization can be detected in the central placement of a figure, in figures that are enclosed within a contour or are carefully "framed," and in various symmetrical arrangements. Thus, compositional development proceeds from an early aspatial depiction of figures, arbitrarily dispersed across the page, to rule-governed alignments and centering of figures. With the child's increasing age and experience with the medium, we can observe the effective use of grouping principles. Figures begin to be grouped on the basis of similarity and contrast in size, shape, color, location, orientation, distance, and activity. While task effects are statistically significant through the full age range of our sample, progress in compositional competence seems to level off at approximately age 9. Until age 9, comparisons between successive age groups yield statistically significant differences in compositional achievement; for ages 9 to 14, the obtained differences are no longer significant.