A child's drawing is connected to their thinking, perception, speech, experience, and emotions. With its help, we can determine the child's cognitive development, how they experience their surroundings, and how well their fine motor skills are developed. A drawing also reveals what the child deems important and what not. In addition, not only can it be used as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool, but it can also act as exercise in literacy development (Nemec in Krajnc, 2013). Preschool children most commonly draw a human figure (Goodnow, 1997 v Marjanovič Umek in Zupančič, 2011). The first drawings of human figures may seem unusual and surprising to adults. The figure that children normally draw has only a head and legs, but it changes its appearance as children get older, thus becoming more familiar to a human. Older children can already draw certain details on their figure that can be attributed to a certain gender. Most frequently, they draw clothes, hair, and accessories (bags, shoes, jewellery) (Marjanovič Umek in Zupančič, 2011). In this paper, I focused mainly on the development of a child's drawing and the development of a human figure. I wanted to determine how children tell apart the two genders and what gender attributes they use in their drawings, if any. I studied gender differences and how they are reflected in children's drawings. All of this was examined in the empirical part by observing children drawing a human figure.
|
