Kids draw and those drawings often end up on fridges, parents showing them off to their family and friends over dinner parties.
But according to a study conducted by psychologists at King’s College London there is more to your kid’s doodles than cute stories.
Draw-a-child study suggests that drawing abilities at a young age can predict intelligence later in life.
Four year olds participating in the study were asked to draw a person and additionally to take a part in verbal and non-verbal intelligence tests. Ten years later, at the age of 14 their intelligence was tested once again.
The results showed that the more details like nose, hair, mouth ears, limbs etc. kids had included in their first drawing the better they did on their second intelligence test in their teens.
The study also showed that intelligence could be linked to genes.
Draw -a-child study was also conducted with 7,752 sets of identical and nonidentical twins.
Identical twins share 100% of their genes, non identical – only 50%. The amount of details in drawings of identical twins were about the same but varied to some extends in case of nonidentical twins. As the drawings by identical twins were more similar to one another than those by non-identical sets of twins, scientists assume that drawing ability is heavily influenced by our genetic make-up.
But before you start to worry note that the relationship between drawing abilities and intelligence is of an no-cause-effect character. The link is only moderate and there are many other genetic or environmental factors by which a child’s intelligence in later life is affected throughout the process of growing up.
All in all to answer the question in the headline: No, drawing won’t make you smart, at least not in the way the UK study means it. Then again, practicing art shapes and sharpens important skills and boosts child’s academic success no less than math. So, I guess, it does make you smart after all.