Drawing ability in typical and atypical development; colour cues and the effect of oblique lines

3D Pen Tactile Pictures Generated by Individuals with Visual Impairments

Introduction:

Individuals with visual impairments acquire information about objects through touch and by use of auxiliary tactile pictures. The current study introduced a new three-dimensional (3D) printing pen technology as a research tool to allow individuals with visual impairments to convert tactile experiences to convex tactile pictures.

Methods:

Participants with visual impairments used a 3D pen to draw pictures of daily necessities. The actions and time related to the entire drawing activity were recorded on video.

Results:

We noted three behaviors during the use of 3D pen: drawing, touching the trace lines, and finding location points. The object-depiction angle, component-completeness description, and drawing-line presentation differed between subjects with congenital and those with acquired blindness.

Discussion:

Individuals with congenital blindness depicted objects mainly from an operational angle, and those with acquired blindness from the angle of the object when laid flat. When the components of an object were relatively complex, the subjects with congenital blindness only drew local features in contact with their bodies and with continuous line segments, and those with acquired blindness used discontinuous line segments. Participants were satisfied that the 3D printing pen could touch the drawing path in time and that they could use the “piling” feature to create positioning marks or planar expressions.

Implications for practitioners:

Students can be instructed to use 3D pens to draw (lines, planes, and objects) to enhance the communication between teachers and students and improve teaching efficiency. Regarding the design of tactile pictures, the parts that come in contact with the body during object use can be considered the reference features of the pictures. For large pictures, attention should be paid to the size ratio between the outline and components. For small pictures, one should consider how the operational feature details should be shown at approximately the original size.

Peripersonal Visuospatial Abilities in Williams Syndrome Analyzed by a Table Radial Arm Maze Task

Williams syndrome (WS) is a genetic deletion syndrome characterized by severe visuospatial deficits affecting spatial exploration and navigation abilities in extra-personal space.To date, little is known about spatial elaboration and reaching abilities in the peripersonal space in individuals with WS. The present study is aimed at evaluating the visuospatial abilities in individuals with WS and comparing their performances with those of mental age-matched typically developing (TD) children by using a highly sensitive ecological version of the Radial Arm Maze (table RAM). We evaluated 15 individuals with WS and 15 TD children in two different table RAM paradigms: the free-choice paradigm, mainly to analyze the aspects linked to procedural and memory components, and the forced-choice paradigm, to disentangle the components linked to spatial working memory from the procedural ones.Data show that individuals with WS made significantly more working memory errors as compared with TD children, thus evidencing a marked deficit in resolving the task when the mnesic load increased. Our findings provide new insights on the cognitive profile of WS.

The severity of the visual impairment and practice matter for drawing ability in children

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Astonishing drawing capacities have been reported in children with early visual impairments. However, most of the evidence relies on single case studies. Hitherto, no study has systematically jointly investigated, in these children, the role of (1) the severity of the visual handicap, (2) age and (3) practice in drawing. The study aimed at revealing the specificities of the drawing in children deprived from vision, as compared to children with less severe visual handicap and to sighted children performing under haptic or usual visual control.

METHOD

148 children aged 6-14 years had to produce 12 drawings of familiar objects. 38 had a severe visual impairment, 41 suffered from low vision, and 69 were sighted children performing either under visual condition or blindfolded under haptic control.

RESULTS

Recognizability and other characteristics of the drawings were highly dependent on the child's degree of vision and level of drawing practice, and progressed with chronological age more clearly in the sighted children or those with low vision than in those deprived of vision.

CONCLUSION

The study confirmed that all groups showed significant drawing ability, even the group totally deprived of visual experience. Furthermore, the specificities of the drawings produced by visually-impaired children appeared clearly related to their practice and the severity of their visual impairment. This should incite parents and professionals to encourage these children to practice drawing as early as possible.

Thinking inside the box: Spatial frames of reference for drawing in Williams syndrome and typical development

BACKGROUND

Successfully completing a drawing relies on the ability to accurately impose and manipulate spatial frames of reference for the object that is being drawn and for the drawing space. Typically developing (TD) children use cues such as the page boundary as a frame of reference to guide the orientation of drawn lines. Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) typically produce incohesive drawings; this is proposed to reflect a local processing bias.

AIMS

Across two studies, we provide the first investigation of the effect of using a frame of reference when drawing simple lines and shapes in WS and TD groups (matched for non-verbal ability).

METHODS AND PROCEDURES

Individuals with WS (N=17 Experiment 1; N=18 Experiment 2) and TD children matched by non-verbal ability drew single lines (Experiment One) and whole shapes (Experiment Two) within a neutral, incongruent or congruent frame. The angular deviation of the drawn line/shape, relative to the model line/shape, was measured.

OUTCOMES AND RESULTS

Both groups were sensitive to spatial frames of reference when drawing single lines and whole shapes, imposed by a frame around the drawing space.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

A local processing bias in WS cannot explain poor drawing performance in WS.