Stages of Child Artistic Development

Experience with art can improve a young child's gross and fine motor skills, emotional expression and creativity. As a child gets older, it can help the development of reasoning skills, aesthetic appreciation, creativity, self-esteem, individuality and the ability to think freely. Children move through these development stages at different paces, but can benefit regardless of speed.

  1. Manipulative

    • This stage begins with random scribbling, which are the first marks a toddler makes in any medium. Young children are exploring their ability to influence their environment. As children gain motor skills and practice with tools and materials, they move into controlled scribbling, where they often make a repeated movement or shape such as wavy or bold lines. Named scribbling appears next, when a child identifies her scribbles with a name, even though it does not necessarily resemble the object. The child might do this in any medium, such as clay, and not only with drawing tools. By the end of this stage, a child begins making art on purpose, with a goal of creating a specific object before she begins.

    Symbolic

    • A child typically enters this stage at around age 6 to 9, when he begins making a series of specific and distinct marks at will to symbolize an object. A drawing of a pet cat will have four legs, a tail and whiskers, for example, or specific characteristics such as stripes and color. However, he may also start to insert relational and emotional symbolism, such as drawing himself larger than a parent. False symbols can also appear, such as stick figures to represent people, and a child must work through that to reach the next stage. At the end of this stage, a child will start to develop spatial schema, drawing a line for the ground as he realizes that objects don't float in space.

    Realistic

    • From about age 9 to 12, a child begins to become critical of their work and want to improve, giving her art a more realistic resemblance to the world. This is the optimal time for art instruction if she has an interest in learning techniques.

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