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(2) The Developmental Program in Visual
Perception.
1966
Marianne Frostig Ann Marie Miller and
David Home.
Chicago Follett Publishing Co with
Curriculum Materials Laboratories Inc.
Publication by members of the staff
Direction of Drawing Movements
by M L J Abercrombie B Sc PhD R L Lindon
MRCS LRCP DPH DCH and Moya C Tyson
BA B Sc(Econ) Ph D
The following article was contributed to
Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology'
in their respective capacities of Bartlett School
of Architecture University College London
formerly of the Paediatric Research Unit Guy's
Hospital Medical Officer of Health and
Principal Medical Officer London Borough of
Hounslow and Senior Psychologist for Special
Units and Special Schools London Borough of
Hounslow
It is reproduced here by kind permission of Dr
Bax , Assistant Editor Spastics International
Publications
In the course of studies on the drawing diffi
culties of cerebral palsied children we recorded
the direction of hand movements when children
were drawing simple line figures with the
fingertip the hands being screened from their
view The child was shown a figure drawn in
black ink on a 4-by 4 inch card and asked to
Dretend to draw it on the table with his fingertip
so that he could show an observer sitting
opposite him( who was unable to see the card
what the figure on it was This shadow drawing
was preferred to actual drawing because the
movements of the fingertip were freer than those
of the hand grasping a pencil The child s hands
were hidden from his own sight by an oblique
board but were visible to the observer sitting
opposite him who recorded their movements
The drawing was done with one hand oniv (single
movements) and with both simultaneously The
figures were a circle square, triangle diamond,
horizontal line vertical line oblique line downwards
sinistrad /and obljque line downwards
dextradV These were copied' with the right
hand and then with the left Two of each of the
figures were then presented side by side to be
drawn1 with each hand at the same time. Members
of a pair were alike, except that, in addition to the
two pairs of parallel oblique lines there were two
pairs of opposite obliques.
The subjects were 45 normal school children
(23 of 6 years and 22 of 9 years mean age - as there
were by inspection no obvious differences in
direction of movement in the two groups, they were
combined), and 26 brain damaged children (for details
see Abercrombie et al 1964) No hemiplegies were
included because of their difficulty in drawing with
the handicapped hand Significance of differences
was tested by X 2.
Six of the normal children and 11 of the brain
damaged were left-handed there were no significant
differences in their patterns of movement, except
that in single movements the left hand in left
handers had a stronger tendency (p«=0,0l) than in
right handers to move sinistrad in drawing a
horizontal line.
Normal Children
When drawing' the circle singly, the two hands
moved in opposite directions in 42 per cent of
cases and there was a tendency for both to move
anticlockwise (80 per cent for the left hand and
64 per cent for the right). When the hands moved
simultaneously they moved in opposite directions
in a greater proportion of cases (91 per cent) and
the incidence of anticlockwise movements was
reduced (62 per cent for the left hand and 47 per
cent for the right) The pattern was similar when
drawing the angular closed figures although some
of the children used discontinuous movements of
mixed direction, and some of the younger ones made
imperfect shapes (Table I).
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