Representational Drawings of Children With Autism

In the present study, the representational drawings of autistic children, typically developing children and younger typically developing children were compared and scored for visual realism in terms of omission errors and commission errors for the discrete and contextually placed objects. For the purpose of assessing autism, Childhood Autism Rating Scale was administered. Results showed that children with mild autism expressed meaning in the drawings of discrete objects in the same manner as the typically developing groups. However, they were found to be impaired in the drawings of contextual objects. These findings were interpreted as evidence of an impaired conceptualization and weak central coherence in autism.