The Early Childhood Development of Inhibitory Control, Motor Control and Drawing Skills

Research has broadly shown that Inhibitory Control and drawing skills are directly associated in early childhood development. The current study extends this in three studies investigating the role of Motor Control in this relationship, and the differences between three different drawing skills in their relationships with Inhibitory Control, Fine and Gross Motor Control, IQ, age and gender. Study 1 found strong positive correlations in 3- and 4-year-old children (n=100) between Inhibitory Control, Fine Motor Control, age and two drawing skills (Figurative Representation and Detail). Mediation analyses however demonstrated that Fine Motor Control fully mediated the relationship between Inhibitory Control and these drawing measures. In contrast, the association of Inhibitory Control with Visual Realism of drawing was not mediated by Fine Motor Control, meaning that Inhibitory Control directly influenced Visual Realism (which is children’s tendency to draw what they see, rather than what they know is there). The relationship of Visual Realism with age was, however, surprisingly negative. Study 2 (n=100) tested further the relationship between Inhibitory Control and Fine Motor Control to reveal any additional role played by Gross Motor Control or verbal IQ. The strong association between Inhibitory Control and Fine Motor Control in early childhood was confirmed: Inhibitory Control and Gross Motor Control were not directly linked, but Fine Motor Control mediated the relationship between Inhibitory Control and Gross Motor Control, while IQ played no major role. Study 3 investigated whether the development with age of Visual Realism in fact follows a U-shaped pattern in children (n=233), accounting for the negative correlation between these among preschoolers. Such a pattern would indicate that children start drawing with visual realism, then move to intellectual realism and then back to visual realism. Some support was found for this hitherto unreported pattern of development.