Memory components and control processes in children's drawing.

This chapter presents a theoretical account of the role of cognitive components in the development of children's drawing. The first part of the chapter sets the stage, delimits the scope of the argument and presents a theoretical framework. The following section gives an account of the emergence of scribbling and the transition from scribbling to representational drawing. In the third section the role of graphic schemes is discussed. The fourth section considers how children's limited processing capacity constrains several aspects of their drawing skills. The theoretical model presented in this chapter, however, is not intended to account for all aspects of children's drawings. Another section of the chapter is specifically devoted to narrative drawing, which remains as an open problem for cognitive developmental theory. The final section briefly draws some general conclusions and indicates prospects for future research. Throughout the chapter extensive references to the author's previous research are given, and new data are also presented.