Abstract
The present study investigated developmental changes in children's drawings made in order to communicate non-visual information to others. Participants, 63 children (22 preschoolers, 20second-graders, 21 fourth-graders), did the following: (1) they drew 2 objects freely after determining the weight of the objects, which, on visual inspection, had appeared to be the same (free task); (2) they drew the 2 objects again with the intention of communicating to others about the difference in the weights of the objects (communicative task). On the basis of the children's drawings and verbal reports, their representation strategies were compared by age group. Whereas in the free task, age differences in strategies were not significant, in the communication task, age differences were found. Preschoolers communicated the weight difference through their original story and a verbal explanation (successive integration strategy); second-graders communicated the weight difference through a difference in the size of the drawings of the objects (simultaneous differentiation strategy); fourth-graders communicated the weight difference by drawing the medium (e. g., seesaw or scale;simultaneous integration strategy). These results suggest that there is a qualitative developmental change in representation when communicating information to others through drawings.
