Developmental trend of Chinese preschool children in drawing and writing

Subjects for this study were 60 Chinese boys and girls ages 2 to 6 years. Each subject was asked to draw a picture of self and write his or her own name on a piece of paper. The analysis of data was based upon the following concerns: (a) human figure drawing ability, (b) differentiation between drawing and writing, and (c) writing own name ability. An age effect was found both in the human figure drawing and writing own name tasks. An upward trend was observed between the age of the subjects and the drawing and writing abilities. Even the 3-year-olds could somehow differentiate drawing from writing. Moreover, many 5-year-olds were able to use correct number of Chinese characters to represent their own names while the 3-year-olds used mostly only one character. Copyright © 1992 by the Association for Childhood Education International.