Original article Spatial cognition in children. I. Development of drawing-related (visuospatial and constructional) abilities in preschool and early school years Ennio Del Giudice a, * , Dario Grossi a , Renato Angelini a , Angela F. Crisanti a,1 , Francesca Latte a , Nina A. Fragassi a , Luigi Trojano b a Departments of Pediatrics (Child Neuropsychiatry Unit) and Neurological Sciences, Federico II University, Via S. Pansini, 5, 80131 Naples, Italy b S. Maugeri Foundation, IRCCS, Medical Center of Telese, Italy Received 28 December 1999; received in revised form 5 July 2000; accepted 5 July 2000 Abstract 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 ®ve cognitive domains: visual scanning, visuospatial percep- tual and representational abilities, visuomotor control and graphomotor skills. Results showed that the total scores signi®cantly 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 ®ndings could suggest that constructional abilities need both perceptual and representational competences to develop properly. q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Visuospatial abilities; Constructional abilities; Spatial cognition 1. Introduction The normal development of the abilities to draw sponta- neously and to copy drawings ± neuropsychologically considered constructional tasks ± not only relies in the progressive acquisition of motor skills [1]. Visual percep- tual and representational abilities should be considered rele- vant prerequisites for the organization of constructional activities such as drawing [2±4]. According to Miller [1] several visuo-spatial competences allow children to develop drawing abilities: appreciation of lines and angles, apprecia- tion of size and relative size, representation of relationships of parts to the whole, planning abilities. Drawing disabilities in children can be related to de®cient development of distal control, i.e. the use of pencil or defec- tive hand-eye coordination [5]. Defective graphic produc- tion can also be due to a poor development of visuo-spatial representations which entails a disability in relating the indi- vidual part of a drawing into a uni®ed whole. This disorder is known as developmental constructional apraxia [6]. Impaired perceptual processing of visuospatial information, such as judgement of shape and size, has also been claimed to be responsible for defective motor control in clumsy chil- dren [7]. Recent information-processing models developed to interpret constructional defects in adult brain-lesioned patients [8±10] do not speak to the issue of developmental constructional disturbances. Speci®c information is needed to understand the normal development of visuospatial and constructional abilities in children. Important clues to the comprehension of the orga- nization of constructional activities in children can be desumed from the observation about the accuracy of draw- ings and the order in which single elements are drawn [11,12]. Numerous diagnostic tools are currently available to study different types of perceptual abilities in children [13,14]; general intelligence tests also contain subtests rele- Brain & Development 22 (2000) 362±367 0387-7604/00/$ - see front matter q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S0387-7604(00)00158-3 www.elsevier.com/locate/braindev * Corresponding author. Tel.: 139-81-746-2678; fax: 139-81-746-3116. E-mail address: endelgiu@ds.unina.it (E. Del Giudice). 1 Dr A.F. Crisanti collaborated to this study while preparing for Ph.D. thesis at the University of Bologna, Italy.