I was wondering...

apparently you can have a rough estimate of the mental age of a child by looking at what s/he draws as a person.

So according to that, a child who is chronologically 4-5 years old but mentally much older, 7+ should made quite elaborate and acurate drawings of persons (appart the actual 'execution' which is related to fine motor skills which are more dependent on chrono-age).

So, what is your experince there? Are the drawings of your kids advanced for their age?

Hmmm ... I don't know!? I'm a bit skeptical. My DS7 is still terrible at drawing. Although he actually tries occassionally now. I'd say he's average for a 1st grade boy. I think a child can be gifted in that arena, but I'm not sure I believe it is indicative of overall GT-ness, if you know what I mean?

DD3.5 however has great small motor skills and draws really well for her age. She can also copy letters and numbers to some degree. I'm sure DS was not doing that at this age? I don't know yet about her whole GT-ness!

My sons both have fine motor issues that affected their drawing ability. In his preteen years though, my older son started drawing anime style and got pretty good. My younger son took a Mona Brooks art class when he was five and six, and he drew some really advanced looking stuff. His interest waned though, and he hasn't really gone back to it.

My dd 7 has won awards for her artwork and she draws just about every day. I have pictures of horses and princesses all over my house! She shocked me by drawing a person's face with eyelashes, pupils, and eyebrows at 22 months. She has an eye for detail that is amazing- she adds rings, bracelets, distinctive cuffs and ruffles, necklines... I am really curious to see what she'll be doing in a few more years.

My youngest is reluctant to draw, though she can do well when she does draw. I think she sees her sister's work and knows she can't compete, and so she just doesn't try.

I do think that the details and not necessarily the execution say something about the intelligence of the artist.

The drawings of DD are still quite clumsy, but she puts a lot of details, like hair in pony-tails, hats, hand-bags or backpacks, necklaces and bracelets, etc.
She as well gives their figures motion, they are never static, which I find quite unsual for this age.

The funny thing is, a few months ago she was still 'scribling'. She has never done the typical static and geometric figures that many kids do.

In the intelligence test you have to look at the number of details that are correct, like having arms and legs, or the torso being longer than wider, etc but not at the quality. At least this is what I understood from what I have been reading.

This would so not work here. My DYS son's drawing were quite simple and at the age of 4 he forgot to draw arms more often than not. I would say that now at the age of 5 he draws like an average K kid.

I guess this could be one of those 'trait list items' whose presence indicates possible GTness but whose absence does not rule it out.

Ok, I have pulled out my Ellen Winner book, which has quite a bit of information on artistic giftedness. Her finding is that the Draw-A-Person test correlates only weakly with intellectual giftedness. She has a fascinating case study of a boy who at age 5 was rated as drawing as well as a 14 year old. He did not have a similar aptitude for reading or math.

So, Isa is right. Like many other traits, this one is a possible sign of giftedness, but not an outright indicator.

DS2�s teacher said that he likes watching other people paint/draw, but doesn�t like to do it himself. She also said that compared to other kid�s artwork, my son�s has the most amount of negative space. If I encourage DS2 to color, he�ll quickly scribble something. He�d rather talk about the different colors or ask me to write something for him (e.g. I love Grandma.). DS2 also likes to quickly name objects as his dad draws a crude sketch. He seems to have no patience for art, but if you give him a train set he�ll be engrossed for hours.

My adult daughter could draw very well as a child and started reading at 4. I kept a few things she drew at various ages and she could definitely draw better then my son, who has motor dyspraxia and mild hypotonia. I have an uncle that could draw well enough that he got paid for it and I suspect that he was gifted, both artistically and verbally, but he is in his 60's and he was never tested. Like my highly gifted stepson, he seemed very, very smart but he lacks common sense.

My son couldn't draw but started reading at 2 1/2 without being taught, even though his eyes would tire and lose focus much faster than other kids without his disability. If IQ is determined partly by physical skills, then maybe my son's IQ would not be as high as my daughter's, yet she recently got upset with her 9 year old half brother because he was using words and talking about things that made her feel stupid. He asked her if she would like for him to dumb down his conversation and she told him yes and that he better watch how he talks around other people--even adults. He has learned that he can't be himself unless he is with his "geeky" friends.

Yesterday, he apologised and said he knew he was a nerd as he stopped to look up the definition of a word when we were reading.

He comes up with really interesting metaphors in his speech, but he is learning to hide this around other people now.

I don't think I will ever have my son's IQ tested. I just am really confused about what IQ really means anyway. My stepson, who tested highly gifted is in his 30's and content to work at a minimum wage job and lives alone because he doesn't want to deal with the "office politics" that he had to deal with in the higher paying jobs he had in the past.

see Hall and Skinner in the appendix of your gifted child... as someone noted... it isn't the quality but the details. to steal from the book:

draws person with 2 parts - average is 48m (33.6m is 30% more advanced)

draws person with neck, hands, clothes - average is 72m (50.4 - considered 30% more advanced).

.. see book for more...

Also see Gifted Children by Ellen Winner - more on Art.

I don't know if any of this is valid but it is published.

C.

Ghost is a great artist. Besides coming up with new ideas to make things look unusual (like snow capped letteres and letters with icicles when doing a project about cold), he is also good at painting/drawing/sculpting. Natural, you want to say.
I used to take him to B&N reading times on Saturdays before school, so he must have been about 4 years old. One day, instead of doing a glitter project, he started drawing , just with pen. I did not pay any attention to what he was doing, I was browsing among books, but when a nice leading lady started going around looking at the work kids completed, I hurried over to my son's table. Just to be mortified by what he has drawn! On a white piece of paper, drawn in pen, there was a picture of a boy using a restroom. The boy was standing in front of the toilet, peeing. You could not see his p...s (can I write it here???), but you could see the stream of urine hitting the toliet bowl. How embarassing!!!! Thankfully, the nice leading leading the group was faster than me (I just about lost my ability to communicate in English at that time), and she commented how acurate this depiction was , LOL, and how well it was executed. Why did he drew that - no idea! Was it natural - you bet! Just one of the examples that my DS was absolutely oblivious to the social cues. And while his subject matter is more in line with adult expectations these days, he remains a good artist.

Hi Kickball,
Welcome!
I love you username - it's my DS11's favorite sport, next to dodgeball.
Smiles,
Grinity

Ania,
Oh My! Glad to hear that Ghost kept his artistic ability...
Smiles,
Grinity

I think it varies. I have one who is very artistic, and 3 not so much. No correlations to IQs; in fact, I would say the least able to draw is the highest IQ.

There are several different versions of "draw-a-person tests" that I can find on the internet. Some are used to determine mental health issues, the Goodenough-Harris Drawing Test is the classic test of Intelligence, and other assessors will use just an informal drawing of a person to help with assessment. In OT I typically use drawing of a person on an informal basis to assess things like body awareness, spatial awareness, fine motor skills, visual motor integration and more. I use reassessment of draw-a-person as a way to measure progress. My son's preschool class did a "Draw A Man" journal, with pictures drawn each month and put in the book for the end of the year. It was fun to see the changes in my son's drawings. But he typically drew a head with legs and arms out of the head until he was well past five years old!! Scared me as an OT, but he seemed just much more interested in numbers and letters back then. He now (almost 7) draws fairly detailed pictures of people and other objects.

The Goodenough-Harris test, when used properly, is scored on the presence of 73 different criteria using three different drawings that the child does. It is wholly based on the presence of parts, location of parts, etc to determine an intellectual level. Not the quality or perfection or artistic ability displayed. The child is also instructed to "draw a whole person" and is allowed to erase, talk to the examiner about the picture and has no time limit. Supposedly there is a high correlation to IQ and this test. Stuff I found on it cites high validity and reliability of the test.

If this is correct Debbie, then DD5 truly must be a genius as she has been drawing her male figures with penises since age 4! Although, I'm pretty sure she understands the concept of shock value and that was her true M.O.
I'm pretty sure it's okay to use the word penis here since that is the medically correct term.
Anyway, I'm less offended if a child uses the word penis correctly than I would be with an adult who uses the word "wee-wee".



I

tee hee!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Love it!

Now, if there were a Transformer-drawing test, my DS6 would blow the lid off it! Correct placement of arms/"shooters," wheels/legs, even the PRECISE placement of the Autobot/Decepticon logo.

But people?...Yawn. He doesn't much care where our arms and legs and--ahem--other parts are.

Great stories!

lol! I don't know what the criteria are for scoring, but I'm pretty sure that some of the scores include actually putting clothes on the person!! Not sure about the presence of external genitalia (also a medically correct term!)

RIGHT BACK AT YOU LOREL..........LOL........HYSTERICAL!!!!!!

Ok - my family thinks I have completely lost it, I'm laughing so much reading this thread. Thanks!

Incog-

Thanks for that deletion. My main concern was that someone would follow my name here on a google search and see that! That might be a bit awkward, to say the least!

Well, it's not like they'd see the drawing...

<smirk>

DS5 has been reading (self-taught) since 2.5 , tests in the EG rage, and can't draw a figure to save his life. He doesn't write very legibly either.

I have enjoyed reading this thread!

My entirely non-expert opinion -
I think artistic expression should be considered as a great window into various factors that we list when we talk about intelligence and giftedness.
At a very young age -
Level of detail - surely speaks volumes about memory, and as has been noted here, may even be an indicator of understanding of human culture and interaction!
Drive to create - how often does the child draw, sing, etc., with what level of focus - a great guage of overall intensity and ability to focus - even though other subjects may make them act out and seem incapable of focusing (personal experience on that one!)

For somewhat older children I have seen more specific artistic milestones listed on a website or two which I think are of interest. (recalling from memory here) Use of skills such as foreshortening, attempting to render 3-dimensionality of an object, composing with use of foreground, background (mid-ground). Shading, etc. I think I have read that these can be good indicators of visual spatial ability, and more of the above traits, since level of detail & focus are increased.

If you are seeing amazing things artistically from your child and have not considered intellectual giftedness - it may be time to rethink. Also, I know I have said this before, when we were applying to the gt proram at school for my ds, bringing in drawings really helped flesh out what he was capable of and what is going on in his head.

I haven't read all the posts..... but actually I am an expert in this area!

While this may come as a shock, art is a very academic subject and can be taught. Just like any subject in school, there are kids who are gifted and kids who are regular and kids that lag. Gifted kids in art may not be gifted in other areas, or they maybe, there is no real relationship. For some people who have issues with verbal communication it can offer an outlet. Which can become finely honed. Image a person who can't see, maybe there hearing gets better..... A person who can't write or speak, may learn to draw better because it's all they got! This is why a lot of people who have "learning disablities" end up in the art field.

In most of my Art education classes, I was asked to read Howard Gardeners 7 different intelligences. (I was never asked to read this in any other education class I took)

so...........Yes! You can sometimes tell which kids are somewhat ahead by there drawings, as long as they are basically normal nerualogically speaking. This is taught in Art Education classes. And after you see a few 100 pictures for each age group, you will pick up on patterns.... Now of course you must recognize that most of the kids that are gifted, are not what is considered nerulaogically adverage. That's why they can read at 2. So, because of this gifted kids are sometimes exceptions!

I once taught art to a 7th grade class of kids. There was a boy who was doing college algraba and high school science..... he drew like a 4 year old. It was partly fine motor, and partly he just wasn't really able to think in pictures. He reported he thought in numbers and in words. As an art form he was gifted in music. He took the art class for a girl he liked.... I gave him an A because while his work was pathetic, he worked very hard on it and did show improvement. He was very mature and a great kid!

Sorry this is so long, but because my knowledge is in such a nitch area, i don't often get to espouse on it. Wow! It feels good!

and just cause I have to show off!

here is a link to howard......He's so dreamy!

http://www.infed.org/thinkers/gardner.htm

Interesting. But what about comedic intelligence. Would that fall under linguistic intelligence? Several people, adults and children, have told my son that he should be a comedian. A gifted friend who is my son's age said this a few days ago when we had dinner with him and his mother. But I have known quite a few people who seemed linguistically gifted but lacked the ability that my son has to make up jokes to fit any situation, even very difficult situations. When bad stuff happens, like when my mother couldn't remember my name for the first time even though we visit every day, he verbally pretends to be writing a combination soap opera/sitcom/parody of our life that he calls "Unhappy Days." I can be close to tears because of things that are very sad and depressing before he tells me the latest episode of Unhappy Days, but then I laugh so hard that I cry anyway. The more depressed I am, the funnier he gets.

He jokes about his mild disability. Instead of finding it irritating when someone pointed us to the special needs dressing room at the YMCA a few years ago because they saw him in homeschool PE, he can joke about it. When he is sitting down and people hear him talking, they think he is really smart and make comments about it, but when he tries to do physical things he somehow loses IQ points in the minds of some people.

My son knows about multiple intelligences. His dad, who works for a university, is in charge of training for his office, so we got to listen in on a training conference where they discussed using different teaching methods because of different learning styles and different intelligences. My son whispered "We already know this--are they just now learning it?"

Some teachers in our small town public school act like they still don't know anything about different intelligences and I don't think they really understand how a child can be twice exceptional.

My son's friend asked him again why he doesn't go back to public school and my son made up a funny story about his difficulty with getting up early in the morning. He finds this easier than telling him the real reason.

I have thought about asking my artist uncle to give my son drawing lessons so that he could possibly advance from being several years behind in drawing ability to maybe one year behind in drawing ability, but he chooses to work on skills that he has a reasonable chance of doing well. He admires the artistic work of others and he likes to learn about their work, but he says he doesn't want to be take drawing lessons when he doesn't have the natural ability in this area. I think he is self conscious about his drawing ability and he will only draw stick figures for people. I think his uncle would be a good teacher since he is family. And he keeps trying to talk me into buying him something called Flash because he is interested in doing animation and games and I think he needs to be able to draw for this.

well... actually no, you can get away with not being able to draw and use flash.

You do have to think visually and you do have to have a basic intuive sense of computers, also you really really really really need how to manual and you should find some forums to ask questions about how to do stuff....

Also a basic working knowledge of a creation program, such as photoshop or painter. but you can do it with out those as long as you have a program to make things in.

Flash is not simple, but it's fun. you can do some really really great stuff with it! (I am still learning it.... and it makes me say many words that you can't say on tv!)

Interesting!

DD5 (almost) drew very elaborate people with distinct bodies, (i.e. not just a head with limbs sticking out), often 5 or more facial features, things like belly buttons, nipples, knee caps, elbows and ankles, etc.

She also drew with perspective. Things that were far away were smaller, closer larger. Looking at a person from above she would draw a circle for the head with two feet sticking out.

Her art work was getting pretty elaborate. I have some dated around 18 months when she was drawing letters and shapes pretty accurately and labeling them before she drew them. So not just lucking out that a scribble looked like something and then labeling it, but actually planning to draw something. And then what she drew increased in elaboration and skill as she got older, as I wrote above.

She started preschool at age 3 years and attended for about 1.5 semesters. During that time, she went from what I described previously to scribbling randomly - a far departure from what she had been doing. She then went through the stage of "blob" drawing with the facial features *mostly* floating in space and not drawn in the face, and is now *finally* starting to make people with more characteristics. Although, now her drawings are quite a bit more accurate. Then again, she now draws things she didn't tackle before - e.g Plankton, Patrick Star and SpongeBob.

I always wondered if this regression was significant. Does anyone know?

I thought it had to do with the fact that the majority of the children in her preschool class were still in the "blob" phase. Her teacher told me that the other kids' abilities had nothing to do with DD's change, because there was one boy in DD's morning class who drew very well for his age. He was 6 months older than DD and went 2 morning a week whereas she went 4 full days. So, I'm not sure I buy what the teacher said. This regression happened with most all of her skills and "Kids my age don't know how to do that!" became one of her favorite mantras. She also changed her speech, paragrahs with correct grammar became short sentences and her pronouns became confused.

She's starting to be more like she was before preschool. Still have some of the "Kids my age..." stuff going on, but there has been a definite improvement since we starting homeschooling (mostly unschool style).

Back to the OP: Yes my DD's drawing was very advanced for her age. (At least I think it was, I don't have a drawing benchmark list to refer to. Is there one in this thread? I haven't read through it, yet.) But then she went backward and is now pretty much where she is supposed to be - from what my friends have mentioned where their kids were at her age, anyway.

My DS6 tested 132 on the standford benet. He is the WORST drawer. In fact I could count on my hands how often he sat down to draw. Just recently stopped drawing stick figures but even still his people drawings are very funny. He drew his teacher and she had these big balloon things on the arms, I was like what the heck is that, he said those were "the sleeves". He also recently was upset saying "no one will love him because he can't draw a heart" I had to tell him to make an M and close it at the bottom. Being a "perfectionist" (he says he is married to that word even), he can't draw "perfect" so doesn't draw at all , unless he has to.

DD7 "failed" the draw the person test when she was being evaluated for SPD when she was 6, in spite of the fact that she loves to draw and indeed draws every single day. Something about the kinds of details. That was shortly after we found out about her giftedness.

DS6 who has an IEP for fine motor and speech, and by my guess probably has a higher IQ than dd even though he hasn't been tested yet, can only draw a person with specific direction. He never draws, at least not people.

Other DS6 draws daily as well, seems to have a different pattern of strengths and weaknesses than his sibs (is doing great with reading), and only draws very basic stick figures - usually tiny ones that are part of some elaborate battle scene LOL.

In our family, there seems to be no correlation between drawing people and intelligence level.

Lori,

I highly recommend Macrae's Biography of John von Neumann. Macrae spends a lot of time comparing geniuses and what makes them tick. He comes to the conclusion that the thing that allows some to transcend (Feynman, Neumann, Fermi ) is whether they can laugh at the world. He gives examples. Its a very interesting book.

http://www.amazon.com/John-Von-Neumann-Scientific-Deterrence/dp/082182676X

DW cannot draw to save her life. But she had straight A's.

Her sister, OTOH, is an amazing artist. From before KG she could draw just about anything. I've seen some pencil drawings from when she was around 7 and they are luminous. But never had more than a B average.

Thanks. I'll have to add that to my next book order. My husband, son and I just got back late last night from another pun-filled trip to Dallas to help my daughter who was having computer trouble. Knowing from experience that this could end up costing us money, and wanting to make sure we had enough money available to help her without putting ourselves in debt, I told my husband that I wished I had checked to see how much our son's "brace" was going to cost and from the backseat we heard "Mom, you're just going to have to "brace" yourself.

My adult daughter, who definitely has the intelligence necessary to draw very well, needed help from the computer geeks in the family who don't draw as well.

My husband said he thought he knew what the problem was and he could fix it but we had to get back home that same evening so we had no choice but to buy a new computer for her and set it up so she could apply for jobs online to replace the job she lost a few months ago. She is having trouble finding another job that pays well enough to pay the rent, she has had a bad cold and was feeling really down, and we knew it was just one of those times we would have to help. Her drawing ability and her exceptional ability to color in the lines is not, for some reason, helping her find a job that pays well enough to pay the rent.

My son, who doesn't normally volunteer to practice math, decided to practice mental math for me by telling me how many games or books or restaurant meals we could have bought for what we spent on his sister's new computer. I have a feeling he will practice this type of mental math for me for a while. I am still hearing about how much better Gamestop stock is doing compared to what I invested his college savings in. He likes his sister and he is really just kind of kidding around about the money issues but he just loves to point things out that I might not have noticed. His dad is the same way. They both tell me they can't help it. They say what they think especially if they think something is funny. No control over it. If it is slightly inappropriate but the humor factor outweighs the inappropriateness which in their minds almost always does, they are going to say it. I is terrible because they make me laugh when I shouldn't and I can't stop myself.

Woof. I can use myself as an example here. I tested into the gifted program in HS (IQ=?; they only told me 99+).

If you were to guess my IQ from my drawing ability at age 4, you would have thought I was, umm...well, downright dumb.

I drew people with circles for heads. Their legs came straight out of their heads, and their arms came out of their legs. My big detail was to draw circles on the legs (knees).

I mostly drew these masterpieces in my mother's books. She begged me not to, but somehow, I was just drawn to them (!).

My drawing ability is probably -2SDs (no joke)! I've always wished I could draw. Many people have tried to teach me, but no matter how hard I try, I just can't do it.

My DS9 (IQ unknown but skipped a grade and very good at math) drew elaborate pictures of me (hair, wearing a dress, etc) in pre-K. He was better then than I am now. He can render things beautifully.

Oh well!

Val

DS5 was using his doodlepro right at 11-12mos old, when i looked down. there was a head, eyes, nose, mouth, ears on each side (though not even), and these big long things coming out from above each eye. I asked him what they were, and he responded "eyebrows mom, eyebrows".

No average 1 year old draws eyebrows. Unfortunately, I also didn't realize until DD3 was born that most average 1 year olds don't draw faces at all, most don't even get the hang of circles that early. DD3 (4 in October) started circles near her 3rd birthday and still today will leave out eyebrows even though she does know they exist.

DS5's drawings are incredibly detailed to this day, but they do still "look" like a kid drew them.

somehow this brought back a memory... When my son was about 2? he use to ask me to draw picture after picture. I would draw a house and he would let me know how man windows and if there should be flowers in the yard, ect. That seems so sweet now.

My DS9 is a good artist. One day I said :you love drawing" he says "no I just draw because I need to." He says "when you make a story it should have pictures."

this is fun to share, I'm new here. maybe my story will bring up a memory for someone else.

Another memory...My DD6 when she was younger, probally preschool, would draw pictures like a rabbit and turn the paper over to draw the tail on the other side. I love that. You all are having a more serious discussion. Maybe you will enjoy the story.

Gifties can remember more detail than others. This test should have an option of describing rather than drawing.

My daughter began drawing simple pix of my husband and me. At some point, she began drawing all the "lines" in our eyes and this made me a little nervous as I was not getting enough sleep at the time. I had to explain to her that sometimes exact is not flattering.

I agree completely! Although, now that I think about it, my kid would probably still be in the testing room two years later! "OK, now we're at the knees. Let me tell you about knees. Oh, do you need to take another break?"

So true! This would be more of a test for the tester's patience. As it was, my daughter takes forever getting drawings "right".

Lol! Yes, I've had plenty of very revealing drawings of myself, daddy, and ds9's sister. One I remember really laughing at was a picture of dd by ds where her face was just solid red. ( Well, she did (does) tend to get a bit hot around the collar. )