Artist's referential intention in early understanding of drawings as symbols

In order to examine the influence of artist's referential intention on early understanding of drawings, two studies were conducted using a matching task. Study 1 explored whether 24-month-old children's understanding of drawings can be facilitated when an adult draws an object while looking at it carefully (non-linguistic cues) and makes her symbolic intention more explicit to the children through verbal descriptions about her drawing actions (linguistic cues). Study 2 examines if at 30 months of age children are able to solve the task with pre-drawn drawings, without being told the artist's intention. The results show that the convergence of non-linguistic and linguistic cues enables children to use drawings as symbols at 24 months; only six months later, children spontaneously relate the drawings and their referents. These results are discussed analysing young children's comprehension of the relationships between drawing, referent, artist and observer.