ABSTRACT
Before we continue to follow the development of children’s drawing, we need to consider some other aspects of representation and expression forming in infancy that influence drawing. Children’s drawing i located within a family of expressive and symbolic actions used fluently by children between 3 and 4 years of age. The members of this family of actions have a mutually reciprocal relationship and are fundamental to the development of cognition and affect. Many of these actions are deceptively trivial looking; forms of behaviour that are overlooked or taken for granted by many, if not actively suppressed. Some researchers and lay people consider these actions as extraneous to drawing and to the development of visual representation. Yet together, these modes of action provide the basis for representation and expression. Embedded within chaotic actions we might observe in any nursery or kindergarten are the beginnings of thought which has logicomathematical, linguistic, spatial, kinaesthetic, dynamic and configurative dimensions (Matthews, 1996a).
