The relationship between children's production and comprehension of realism in drawing

Two studies compared 2- to 14-year-olds' production and comprehension of realism in human figure drawings. In the comprehension task, children were asked to choose from an array of children's drawings the (1) most realistic drawing, (2) one they liked the best, and (3) one most similar to their own human figure drawings. Both studies reported thar children of all drawing levels typically selected a more advanced drawing than shown in their own productions for all three questions, except that the most advanced drawers consistently estimated their drawing level appropriately. In Study 2, children were also asked to place the drawings in an age-related developmental sequence. Performance on this task was positively related to the child's production level, independently of the child's age. It is concluded that production lags comprehension in drawing development, but that production level may have an influence on children's knowledge of the developmental sequence in drawing.