Examining young children’s progressions in drawing, from scribble lines to graphic representations of people, places, and objects—to their writing of alphabetic symbols—may open windows into knowledge of early cognitive, language, and motor development. In the present mixed-method investigation, we first review prior literature on such transitions, which includes discussion of the stages or sequences of mark-making, drawing, and early writing. We then discuss existing measures of human figure drawings, name writing, early writing, oral language (mean length of utterance of the child’s descriptions of each drawing/writing sample), and content themes. Next, for five children aged 3-5 years attending a university-affiliated preschool, we examine repeated sets of drawings and early writings, ranging from 23 to 73 samples per child, from archival materials. Each case study includes both (a) narrative descriptions of each child’s progressions and (b) analyses of scores on the included measures. With the overall aim of preparing for a larger study that includes regular and more data-intensive samples subject to blinded scoring, we provide comparisons within each child and across children—featuring linear trends and high intra-individual variability– regarding development of graphic symbol systems (i.e., drawing and early writing) during the foundational preschool years.

中文翻译：

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研究幼儿从绘画到早期写作的转变

检查幼儿的绘画进展，从涂鸦的线条到人物、地点和物体的图形表示，再到他们书写字母符号，可能会打开了解早期认知、语言和运动发展知识的窗口。在目前的混合方法调查中，我们首先回顾了关于这种转变的先前文献，其中包括对标记制作、绘画和早期写作的阶段或顺序的讨论。然后，我们讨论了人体图画、名字书写、早期写作、口语（儿童对每个绘画/写作样本的描述的平均说出长度）和内容主题的现有测量。接下来，对于就读于大学附属幼儿园的 5 名 3-5 岁儿童，我们检查了档案材料中重复的图画和早期作品，每个孩子 23 到 73 个样本不等。每个案例研究包括 （a） 每个孩子进展的叙述性描述和 （b） 对所包含测量的分数分析。为了准备一项更大规模的研究，包括受盲法评分的常规和更多数据密集型样本，我们提供了每个儿童内部和儿童之间的比较——具有线性趋势和高度的个体内部变异性——关于基础学龄前时期图形符号系统（即绘画和早期写作）的发展。