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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!!!!!!