Rigidity in children’s drawings and its relation with representational change

Drawing self and others: How do children with autism differ from those with learning difficulties?

“…As development proceeds, outputs on the basis of such a schema or procedural style may be modified in accordance with other factors such as increasing cognitive flexibility (including that measured by IQ tests, or mediated by representational redescription; Karmiloff‐Smith, 1990), or skill in selecting drawing devices, or aspects of personality or emotional disturbance including those assessed by drawings in clinical settings. Here it is relevant to note the evidence for and against a degree of rigidity in the drawings of typically‐developing young children, perhaps especially in human figures drawn out of habit (see Barlow, Jolley, White, & Galbraith, 2003). Therefore, one might consider whether the relatively undifferentiated human figure drawings by children with autism reflect something atypical in the schemata underlying performance, or in the factors that usually introduce flexibility to the application of the schema, or in yet other factors that modify the form and content of what is drawn.…”

Understanding boundary extension: Normalization and extension errors in picture memory among adults and boys with and without Asperger's syndrome

“…Whilst it enables us to make specific predictions about how those with ASD might perform on a boundary extension task, there are clear difficulties in using drawing as a tool to measure boundary extension in this population since they show an atypical drawing style (i.e., local style). Furthermore, although previous researchers have used drawing tasks to make comparisons between typically developing groups (e.g., Seamon, Schlegel, Hiester, Landau, & Blumenthal, 2002), drawing style is well known to change as a function of age (e.g., Barlow, Jolley, White, & Galbraith, 2003;Jolley, Knox, & Foster, 2000;Thomas & Silk, 1990). We thus developed a testing procedure that was simple to understand for participants of different ages and clinical status and which was designed to yield a readily interpretable measure of boundary extension.…”

Relationships Between Procedural Rigidity and Interrepresentational Change in Children's Drawing Behavior

“…A main point in this model is that representational change remains limited as long as the sequential constraint is in effect. Karmiloff-Smith's (1992) influential model, which tackles the general question of cognitive development and its possible application to drawing, gave rise to a large number of studies on children's graphic innovation abilities (Barlow, Jolley, White, & Galbraith, 2003;Berti & Freeman, 1997;Phillips, Halford, & Wilson, 1998;Picard & Vinter, 1999;Spensley & Taylor, 1999;Vinter & Picard, 1996;Zhi, Thomas, & Robinson, 1997). As a whole, these studies showed that (1) the constraint of independence between routines suggested by Karmiloff-Smith can indeed account for increasing representational changes with age, although sensitivity to verbal drawing instructions is thought to play a role, (2) the constraint of sequentiality within routines is not as strong as it was assumed to be, although the experimental findings lead to different conclusions on this issue, and (3) the role of a sequential constraint on representational change is not as clear-cut as predicted.…”

“…By contrast, Zhi et al (1997) recorded the drawing order of the basic elements only and found evidence of a sequentially ordered routine in young children. Recently, Barlow et al (2003) examined the number of pairs of elements drawn in a same order in three successive free drawings of a familiar object (a man). The authors reported that the routine was held relatively constant across drawings, suggesting that a sequential constraint could apply to this drawing behavior.…”