Spatial cognition in children. I. Development of drawing-related (visuospatial and constructional) abilities in preschool and early school years

The present study aimed to investigate the acquisition of visuospatial and graphomotor capacities during the pre-school and early schooling years in o rder to follow the normal development of drawing-related abilities and spat ial cognition, Eighty children aged 3-5 years, divided in four subgroups ea ch different for ii 6-month period, and 80 children aged 8-9 years were adm inistered a neuropsychological battery for visuospatial and visuoconstructi onal analysis. The battery explored five cognitive domains: visual scanning , visuospatial perceptual and representational abilities, visuomotor contro l and graphomotor skills. Results showed that the total scores significantl y improved in each group of children with respect to the previous one, but the pattern of skill acquisition was not homogeneous. We observed a gradien t from explorative and visuomotor to perceptive, representational and graph omotor abilities. Explorative and visuomotor abilities were almost mature a t a time when visuoperceptual capacities began to develop. On the contrary, at that time we found very low performances at representational and constr uctional tasks. Our findings could suggest that constructional abilities ne ed both perceptual and representational competences to develop properly. (C ) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.