The severity of the visual impairment and practice matter for drawing ability in children.
Kids with visual impairments can draw well if you give them enough practice, regardless of how much they can see.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Vinter et al. (2018) tested 8- to young learners with different levels of visual impairment.
They asked each child to draw common objects like a house or a cat.
Then they scored how well another child could name the drawing.
What they found
Kids with mild vision loss drew pictures that were easy to name.
Kids with no vision still made recognizable drawings if they had practiced a lot.
More practice helped every child, no matter how much they could see.
How this fits with other research
Whitehouse et al. (2013) found that blind children scored lower on running and kicking.
That study looked at big body movements, while Annie et al. looked at small hand skills.
The two papers together show that vision loss hurts gross motor skills more than fine motor skills like drawing.
Schott et al. (2021) showed that blind kids struggle to picture body movements in their mind.
Annie et al. prove that even with this struggle, kids can still learn to draw well through practice.
Why it matters
You can add drawing lessons to any visual impairment program. Start early and give lots of practice. Even totally blind learners can create pictures others understand.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Astonishing drawing capacities have been reported in children with early visual impairments. However, most of the evidence relies on single case studies. Hitherto, no study has systematically jointly investigated, in these children, the role of (1) the severity of the visual handicap, (2) age and (3) practice in drawing. The study aimed at revealing the specificities of the drawing in children deprived from vision, as compared to children with less severe visual handicap and to sighted children performing under haptic or usual visual control. METHOD: 148 children aged 6-14 years had to produce 12 drawings of familiar objects. 38 had a severe visual impairment, 41 suffered from low vision, and 69 were sighted children performing either under visual condition or blindfolded under haptic control. RESULTS: Recognizability and other characteristics of the drawings were highly dependent on the child's degree of vision and level of drawing practice, and progressed with chronological age more clearly in the sighted children or those with low vision than in those deprived of vision. CONCLUSION: The study confirmed that all groups showed significant drawing ability, even the group totally deprived of visual experience. Furthermore, the specificities of the drawings produced by visually-impaired children appeared clearly related to their practice and the severity of their visual impairment. This should incite parents and professionals to encourage these children to practice drawing as early as possible.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2018 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2018.04.027