Pre-school Children Drawings and their Relation with Linguistic Development and Writing aptitudes Skills in Bahrain: An Analytical Study

Abstract

This study aimed at investigating the: (a) writing aptitudes among preschool children, by gender differences and levels of verbal description in writing and drawing, (b) relationship between children drawing and pre-writing signs, and between verbally describing and pre-writing typescripts of preschool children in the kingdom of Bahrain. Study sample comprised 30 children (15 males and 15 females) who were randomly chosen from various kindergartens in Bahrain. The study used different measures as follows: Writing Aptitudes Checklist, Drawing Scale and Verbal Communication Scale. The result showed that: Writing of vertical lines, circles, and horizontal lines were the most highly developed writing skills among subjects. However, crocked, spiral and radius lines were the least developed writing skills among them. There were no gender differences between males and females at the writing skill: vertical, horizontal circular lines. Moreover, there was no significant gender effect on writing aptitudes and drawing skills. In addition, there was a significant relationship between: (a) writing aptitude and drawing skills at (α = 0.05), (b) writing aptitude and verbal communication at (α = 0.01) and (c) drawing skills and verbal communication at (α = 0.05). Finally, drawing skills were predictive of writing skills among children, which means that children drawing skills can be used to convey information about their writing.