Spatial cognition in children. I. Development of drawing-related (visuospatial and constructional) abilities in preschool and early school years

The present study aimed to investigate the acquisition of visuospatial and graphomotor capacities during the pre-school and early schooling years in order to follow the normal development of drawing-related abilities and spatial cognition. Eighty children aged 3–5 years, divided in four subgroups each different for a 6-month period, and 80 children aged 8–9 years were administered a neuropsychological battery for visuospatial and visuoconstructional analysis. The battery explored five cognitive domains: visual scanning, visuospatial perceptual and representational abilities, visuomotor control and graphomotor skills. Results showed that the total scores significantly improved in each group of children with respect to the previous one, but the pattern of skill acquisition was not homogeneous. We observed a gradient from explorative and visuomotor to perceptive, representational and graphomotor abilities. Explorative and visuomotor abilities were almost mature at a time when visuoperceptual capacities began to develop. On the contrary, at that time we found very low performances at representational and constructional tasks. Our findings could suggest that constructional abilities need both perceptual and representational competences to develop properly.