DAP

Gotcha!!! But no, am not into politics right now... hehehe.

In my first semester, my lecturer for "Arts for Children" did touch a little about what a child would draw by stages. And it appeared more real to me now when I first witness this "truth" through Sarah's drawing of a human being. It really made some sense to me now! :)

DAP stands for "Draw-A-Person" and according to wiki:

The Draw-A-Person Test (DAP, DAP test, or Goodenough-Harris Draw-A-Person Test) is a psychological projective personality or cognitive test used to evaluate children and adolescents for a variety of purposes.

I never knew this test actually exist until I had this sudden interest to know more about the development of my little girl when she started to learn to draw a person. I find it really amusing and I am in total pride when I saw the first "human-drawing" drawn by my little girl... I'll share more about this when I manage to sort the pix I took this morning :)

In the meantime, allow me to share with you some findings I had with DAP. One of the articles I read which gives much information is found here.

"...... The way the kids draw the person determines at what mental developmental stage they are at. You can pretty much test for intelligence with a simple drawing. At the age of 3, kids start to draw circles and lines, but usually can't really make a stick figure look like a person. At the age of 4, they are supposed to start drawing people more like we're used to: head, arms, legs. But at the age of 4 (mental age of 4) most kids draw the arms and legs coming out of their heads - no body. Jakub didn't do this. His picture had a body. Even in the picture above - drawn when he was 4 months shy of four, Jakub drew a body. The doctor said that this was an indication that his mental development stage is more like a 5 year old rather than a 4 year old (I always knew my son was smart :)). At the age of 5, children start drawing bodies, arms and legs coming from the bodies. Then, between 5 and 5.5, kids start to draw more detail, including 3 fingers (not 5), clothes, etc....."

Check out more about this test as you type "DAP test" on google search. You will surely find lots of interesting stuff relating to this study. I definitely found this interesting!