The Relationship of Language and Drawing in Description and Memory Tasks

Abstract

This study examines the graphic and verbal descriptive abilities of children and relationships that might exist between these abilities by requiring children to describe a three-dimensional object. This study further examines the relationship of kind of descriptive mode (drawing or talking) and sequence of mode to memory tasks. Subjects from 3 to 10 years of age observed a threedimensional object and responded either by drawing it or verbally describing it or both. Subjects also participated in a memory task 48 hours after their description task that required them to recall and reconstruct the appearance of the three-dimensional object in drawn or verbal form. The 160 subjects participating in this study were divided into eight groups that received the descriptive and memory tasks in a variety of sequences. While children's descriptive abilities increased with age, they displayed differences in verbal and graphic description only when recalling the described object from memory.