Premium
VERBAL DESCRIPTIONS OF SPATIAL RELATIONS IN LINE DRAWINGS BY YOUNG CHILDREN
Author(s) -
ASSO DOREEN,
WYKE MARIA
Publication year - 1973
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1973.tb01347.x
Subject(s) - psychology , spatial relation , test (biology) , line drawings , spatial ability , developmental psychology , age groups , cognitive psychology , cognition , geometry , mathematics , paleontology , demography , engineering drawing , neuroscience , sociology , engineering , biology
A study of the ability of children to describe verbally spatial relations depicted in line drawings was carried out. The subjects were 60 children between the ages of 4 1/2 and 7 1/2 years. The test material consisted of 27 cards. Each card had one or two lines and a circle drawn on it. The lines and the circle were drawn in different spatial relations to one another. The results show that the ability of children to describe such spatial relations improves with increasing age. Furthermore, comparison between scores obtained from the children's own verbalizations and those obtained from a test of the ability to comprehend verbal material describing the spatial relations in the same drawings showed that there were no significant differences in the accuracy of response in any age group. The study also analyses the words most frequently used by the children in describing the cards, as well as the correct usage of such words. Some theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.