Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1998, 87,487-497. O Perceptual and Motor Skills 1998 DRAWING PERFORMANCE IN CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL LEARNING DIFFICULTIES ' HELEN1 MATI-ZISSI, MARIA ZAFIROPOULOU AND FOTINI BONOTI Department of Education Universdy of Thessaly, Greece Summary.-The present study examined drawings on 5 tasks of 45 dyslexic and 45 nondyslexic children aged 6-9 years old. Children who show low performance in written language and phonological awareness are also expected to get low scores on drawing tasks which require s i d a r skills such as comprehension of difference, coor- dination of parts in an organized whole, spatial movement, classification or distinction of figures. The presenr hypotheses were consrrucred accordingly. Analysis showed that the drawings of the dyslexic participanrs presented inadequate planning, diff~culties in the depiction of contrast, size-scaling and canonicality, lack of details, and stereotypic depicuon. The definition of dyslexia preferred by the World Federation of Neurol- ogy states that "[Dyslexia is] a disorder manifested by difficulty in learning to read despite conventional instruction, adequate intelhgence, and sociocul- tural opportunity" (Critchley, 1975, p. 361). Deficits in a whole list of cognitive slulls including visual processing, phonological awareness (Castles & Coltheart, 1993; Goswami, 1997) and short-term memory have been pro- posed as the fundamental deficit in dyslexia. It has also been reported that ddficulties in the speech-processing system (Stackhouse & Wells, 1997) as well as problems in sequencing and in the visuospatial perceptual processes are the most prominent in dyslexic children (Dautrich, 1993; Tyler, 1993). The above characteristics also appear in recent research on children's drawings which concentrate on the cognitive aspects that underlie children's drawing performance (Case & Ogamoto, 1996; Dennis, 1992; Freeman, 1980; Karmiloff-Smith, 1992). More specifically, recent experimental studles indi- cated the importance of the drawing process in determining the final shape of the finished product (Freeman, 1980; Henderson & Thomas, 1990). The emphasis given to the drawing process has led to an important shift; rather than viewing drawings as a "print-out" of mental images, researchers in this field consider them as constructions, the final form of which depends cru- cially on the procedures used to produce them (Freeman, 1980; Goodnow, 1977; Thomas & Sdk, 1990). The developmental sequence of drawing as proposed by Luquet (1913) 'Enquiries or requests for reprints should be directed to Dr. M. Zafiropoulou, Department of Education. University of Thessaly, Argonafcon and F i l h o n Street, Volos 38221, Greece or e-mail (zafirop@groovy.gr).