Kids' drawings indicate later intelligence: Study

Kounteya.Sinha @timesgroup.com

London:





They might look like random scribbles, but how your four-year-old draws a picture of a child is an indicator of intelligence at age 14, say scientists.

According to a study by the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, the higher scores on a `Draw-a-Child' test were moderately associated with higher scores of intelligence at ages four and 14.The researchers studied 7,752 pairs of identical and nonidentical twins and found that the link between drawing and later intelligence was influenced by genes.

At the age of four, children were asked by their parents to complete the test--draw a picture of a child. Each figure was scored between zero and 12 depending on the presence and correct quantity of features such as head, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, hair, body , arms, etc. For example, a drawing with two legs, two arms, a body and head, but no facial features, would score four.

“The test was devised in the 1920s to assess children's intelligence, so the fact that the test correlated with intelligence at age four was expected,“ said Dr Rosalind Arden, lead author of the paper.

“The correlation is moderate, so our findings are interesting, but it does not mean that parents should worry if their child draws badly .“