Would you believe that a comic looking piece of illustration made with imperfect circles and crooked lines can conclude a child's intellect later on in their life? A recent study found that a 4-year-old's drawing capability would be an indication of the child's intelligence. When this news was revealed to the public, many parents were concerned"”what if they did not give birth to an artist? Does this mean that their child will become imbeciles later on? Of course not! Dr. Rosalind Arden, a researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College in London, assured the public that "the correlation is moderate," according to the research published on the recent publication of Psychological Science.
"The correlation is moderate, so our findings are interesting, but it does not mean that parents should worry if their child draws badly," she explained. "Drawing ability does not determine intelligence; there are countless factors, both genetic and environmental, which affect intelligence later in life," a report from King's College in London quoted.
Dr. Arden and her other contemporaries made an event during which they gathered a total of 15,504 children consists of identical and non-identical twins. They were asked to draw an image of a child, which will be given a score ranging from zero to twelve, zero being the lowest and twelve, the highest. Scoring was based on how accurate the child can complete the most common physical features of a human child, including features such as a head with two eyes, 1 nose, 2 ears, a mouth, a torso with two arms and two legs.
Dr. Arden said that these drawing tests started years ago in the 1920's and the result of their recent studies show that at the age of 14, the drawings that they made at the age of 4 tallied to their intellectual abilities later on when they reached puberty. They also found out that genetics is a great contribution since identical twins were closely linked more than the non-identical ones.
