Levels of Art Development Among Preschool Children
Abstract
The problem which was investigated in this study was the influence of a child development laboratory experience and the child's discriminatory abilities on the developmental level of children's art productions.
Forty-eight children, three and four years of age, of whom 24 had no prior experience, and 24 others had completed approximately six months as participants in a child development laboratory, were included in the study.
All children were given a discrimination task to establish their individual levels of discriminatory abilities. Each child painted four pictures, two with easel paint and two with crayons. Each painting was analyzed to determine art content and level of development.
The findings indicated that discrimination ability does not appear to be an influential factor on the developmental level of children 's art creations among children of this age. Children demonstrated more advanced art stages when using crayons than when painting with tempra at the easel. Experience in the Child Development Laboratory exerted its strongest influence on the child's production of learned art forms, alphabet letters and numerals.
It was concluded that art experiences for three and four year old children tend to be motoric and exploratory responses to the various media in use by them. However, experience is also a factor in the development of children's art, in that the child's use of learned art forms is influenced by an enriched learning environment.