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Contrasting Styles of Drawing in Gifted Individuals with Autism

Maureen Cox and Kate Eames
Autism 1999 3: 397
DOI: 10.1177/1362361399003004006

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 autism © 1999
SAGE Publications
Contrasting styles of drawing and The National
Autistic Society,
Vol 3(4) 397–409;009489
in gifted individuals with 1362-3613(199912)3:4

autism

M AU R E E N C OX University of York, UK
K AT E E A M E S University of Coventry, UK

a b st r ac t The drawings of two artistically gifted young people k ey wo r d s

with autism (BX and CZ) were compared and related to their cog- autism;
nitive profiles. BX is more typical of other cases of autistic savants case studies;
in his choice of non-human subject matter and linear style of drawing;
drawing and also in his cognitive profile. CZ is unusual in draw- individual
ing the human face and in concentrating on the drawing technique differences;
of tonal contrasts; her cognitive profile is also atypical. The article
highlights individual differences within the autistic savant popu-
savant
lation.
a d d r e s s Correspondence should be addressed to: D R M . V . C O X , Department of
Psychology, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK
n ot e The names used in each case study were changed to protect the identity of the
young people and their families.

Introduction
Individuals with autism typically have a cognitive profile characterized by
poor verbal ability but relatively good non-verbal ability (Hermelin and
O’Connor, 1970). On the Wechsler Intelligence Scale (Wechsler, 1981), for
example, these individuals tend to score higher on the block design and
object assembly (Frith, 1989). They also have superior visual memory
(O’Connor and Hermelin, 1987a; 1987b;Winner, 1996) and a higher than
expected level of performance on the Embedded Figures Test (O’Connor
and Hermelin, 1983; Shah and Frith, 1983; Hermelin and O’Connor,
1986). Some autistic savants seem to have capitalized on their abilities and
have shown extraordinary ability to replicate a piece of piano music, carry
out rapid calendar calculations or draw a scene in accurate visual perspec-
tive.
Autism is rare, although estimates vary depending on how the disorder
is defined and diagnosed. Surveys in Europe, Japan and North America
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au t i s m 3(4)
report that the incidence ranges between 4 and 10 cases in 10,000 births
(Sigman and Capps, 1997). Autistic savants are very rare (10 percent of
autistic individuals, according to Rimland, 1978). Despite or because of
this rarity, there has been widespread scientific and public interest in recent
years in the very few autistic savants who have demonstrated extraordinary
drawing ability. One of the first and most widely publicized of these was
Nadia (Selfe, 1977; 1995), a child generally acknowledged as artistically
gifted despite her severe learning impairment and diagnosis of autism.
Nadia’s skill was in reproducing picture-book images mostly from
memory, including detail, proportion, occlusion and foreshortening. Her
drawings were often not exact copies since she sometimes rotated the
images compared with the originals. Later, she increased the range of
topics she drew and also attempted to draw from life. She drew less and less
after the age of about 8 years and her drawings became more childlike,
reflecting her low mental age of 5 or 6 years.
Since the publication of Selfe’s study of Nadia there have been other
reports of individuals with autism who are also artistically gifted (Selfe,
1983; Hermelin and O’Connor, 1990; Milbraith and Siegel, 1996). A
notable characteristic of their artwork is its visual realism, in particular its
linearity, capturing the contours and perspective of an object or a scene.
Autistic savants typically prefer to use implements that produce fine lines
rather than thick crayons or brushes (Winner, 1996); Nadia’s drawings
were notably worse when she was forced to use a thick crayon. The autis-
tic artist, Stephen Wiltshire (1987; 1989; 1991) is well known for his line
drawings of streets, buildings and cars which exhibit a remarkable grasp of
linear perspective. Before he entered art college his work consisted almost
entirely of these subjects executed in a linear style. At art college attempts
have been made to extend his artistic vocabulary, and despite Stephen’s
‘natural’ inclination towards a linear style he has proved himself able to
benefit from tutoring in another style. Pring et al. (1997) have reported
Stephen’s success in mastering the use of tonal differences in shading,
which has improved his figure drawings from life.
In this article we report two cases of individuals with autism (BX and
CZ) who also have exceptional drawing ability. One exhibits a linear style
but the other, unusually for an autistic savant, is concerned with building
up an image with areas of tonal contrast. Over a period of 18 months we
investigated the drawing and other cognitive abilities of these two young
people. Comparisons were also made with low-ability Down’s syndrome
controls, normal mental age matched control groups, and normal chrono-
logically aged matched art students (Eames, 1993).The details of the com-
parisons with these groups will not be reported in this article, however;
here, we are specifically concerned with contrasting the drawing styles of
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 c ox & e a m e s : d r aw i n g a n d au t i s m
the two artists and relating these to their different cognitive profiles. We
report details of their scores on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale (Wechsler
Adult Intelligence Scale – Revised (WAIS–R), 1981, or Wechsler
Intelligence Scale for Children – Revised (WISC–R), 1974, according to
age), the Benton Visual Retention Test (Benton, 1974) and the Embedded
Figures Test (Witkin et al., 1971).

The case studies

We contacted all the schools and institutions for individuals with autism
which were on The National Autistic Society’s (UK) list and also all schools
for children with moderate/severe learning difficulties in two local edu-
cational authorities. From this survey two individuals were identified with
autism, low cognitive functioning (a full-scale IQ of more than two stan-
dard deviations below the population mean) and remarkable drawing
ability. Their drawing ability was remarkable for their mental ages and at
least as good as that produced by gifted drawers of the same chronological
ages, as judged by five art teachers and five college art lecturers.

BX and the Forth bridges

BX was a full-term baby with no birth complications. However, he had poor
early language development which caused parental concern. He was diag-
nosed as having autism at 4 years of age. The diagnosis was made accord-
ing to the established criteria of the World Health Organization (1978)
classification. He suffered from epilepsy, lacked concentration and gave the
impression of being clumsy and uncoordinated when carrying out gross
motor tasks. His drawing skill suddenly appeared at the age of 15 years 6
months without any evidence of practice. He drew from memory and his
preferred topics were the Forth road and rail bridges (see Figure 1). These
drawings are notable in terms of their precise linear style and perspective.
Often the perspective is very dramatic when the point of view is at a very
high angle looking down or a very low one looking up at the bridges. BX
appeared not to plan his drawings by, for example, marking off the dimin-
ishing size with distance as a normal artist might do. Often he would begin
at one corner of the page, with as much focus on the river bank or houses
as on the bridge itself. He would work on each section until it was finished
and then would move on to a neighbouring section. Nevertheless, the com-
pleted drawing would be well-composed on the page. BX was right-handed
and was aged 19 years 6 months at the beginning of testing.

CZ and her portraits

CZ was a full-term baby with no birth complications. She was described as
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au t i s m 3(4)
(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 1 Examples of BX’s drawings of the Forth bridges

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 c ox & e a m e s : d r aw i n g a n d au t i s m
an unhappy baby, with poor sleeping patterns, bouts of uncontrollable
behaviour and a dislike of others. She was originally diagnosed as dyspha-
sic with word-finding difficulties and poor expressive language and was
registered as mentally impaired. Autism was diagnosed when she received
a full cognitive assessment (DSM-III: American Psychiatric Association,
1980) at age 6 years. Social competence, play and communication were
delayed by 3 years and had not improved when she was reassessed at age
7 years. Her performance on the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scale was
within the range of a normal 5-year-old. When she was reassessed at age
14 years, the diagnosis of autism according to the DSM-III was reaffirmed
and she was also characterized as having moderate learning difficulties.
Although CZ’s early drawings of people were described as‘detailed’ there
is no evidence of any visually realistic portraits before the age of 13 years
when she began to draw portraits obsessively, often of popular singers.The
models were generally photographs in newspapers and magazines which she
copied directly, although she was known to have drawn from life also. This
work was excellent when it first appeared (see Figure 2). CZ did not plan out
her portraits with a sketchy outline or begin at an anchor point, such as the
eyes, but often began at a point where the nose casts a shadow, working on
the texture, before moving on to other features of the face. She displayed a
competent use of proportion and spatial relationships between features and
a concern with shadow, texture and tone – all important aspects of achieving
a good likeness in portraiture. CZ swiftly glanced back and forth (more than
20 glances a minute) between portrait and model during the drawing
process.Although in the final drawing the features are well balanced, and the
likeness excellent, the drawing often appears unfinished (it is notable that
few portraits have hair). Her reproductions are often much larger than the
original and sometimes there was not enough space left on the page for the
lower part of the face or for the hair detail on one side. CZ was right-handed
and was aged 13 years 11 months at the beginning of testing.

Wechsler Intelligence Scales

BX and CZ both completed the appropriate Wechsler Intelligence Scale for
their age and their sub-test scores are compared with those of autistic
populations reported by Lockyer and Rutter (1970), Bartak et al. (1975)
and Tymchuk et al. (1977) (see Figure 3). BX’s performance on the
WAIS–R (Wechsler, 1981) was 68, with a verbal IQ of 62 and a perform-
ance IQ of 82. His Wechsler profile is a similar shape to, although more
exaggerated than, that of the general autistic population. In particular, his
digit span, block design and object assembly scores are very high.
CZ’s performance on the WISC–R (Wechsler, 1974) was 54, with a
verbal IQ of 52 and a performance IQ of 64. Her scores are generally quite
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au t i s m 3(4)

(a)

Figure 2 Examples of CZ’s portraits

(b)

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 c ox & e a m e s : d r aw i n g a n d au t i s m

(c)

low compared with the mean autistic populations, although her profile on
the performance items is very similar to that reported by Lockyer and
Rutter (1970), with her highest scores on the block design and object
assembly tasks (see Figure 3). The discrepancy between CZ’s verbal and
performance IQs is certainly not dramatic and her scores on the perform-
ance subscales are lower than one might expect for an autistic savant artist;
however, this is not unusual according to O’Connor and Hermelin (1991).

Benton Visual Retention Test

This test (Benton, 1974) assesses short-term visual memory for graphic
designs (Table 1). There were four administrations of forms C, D and E,
varying exposure time and delay between exposure and recall; there was
also a copying task. When there was no delay between exposure and recall,
BX’s reproduction of the design after 10 seconds exposure was equivalent
to adults with an IQ 80–94, and after 5 seconds exposure to adults with IQ
95–109. When there was a delay between exposure and recall BX’s per-
formance improved. His copying ability was equivalent to an adult with IQ
95–104. Thus, he showed no impairment of visual memory and indeed
was better than one would expect from his non-verbal ability.
For the immediate recall trials, CZ reproduced far fewer than five
designs correctly and more than 14 errors which is equivalent to IQ 69 at
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Figure 3 BX’s and CZ’s Wechsler profiles compared with non-savant autistic
samples

age 14. Her copying ability, on the other hand, assessed by both the
number correct and the number of errors, is the same as that expected for
13-year-olds with IQ 116–147 (norms are not reported for this task for
children above age 13 years). Like BX, CZ shows better copying ability than
one would expect from her non-verbal ability. However, while BX’s visual
memory is superior to that expected, CZ’s is poorer. (See Table 1 for
number of items correct and number of errors in each condition.)

Embedded Figures Test

Shah and Frith (1983) reported that children with autism show a peak
ability on this test (Witkin et al., 1971) which requires children to locate
a hidden shape in a more complex schematic object drawing as a measure
of field dependency. Both BX and CZ also show peak performance on this
test. BX was tested at age 19. He made only one error in the 25 trials and
his score of 24 was more than one standard deviation above the mean for
normal subjects on this test. His speed was also recorded: only three items
took longer than 10 seconds. Witkin et al. report that 12-year-olds take on
average 94.8 seconds for each item while college students’ mean response
is 45.5–69.4 seconds per item.
CZ completed the Embedded Figures Test at age 14 years 11 months.
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 c ox & e a m e s : d r aw i n g a n d au t i s m
Table 1 BX’s and CZ’s performance on the Benton Visual Retention Tests
Number correct Errors
BX CZ BX CZ
Copying 10 9 0 3
5 s exposure 7 2 4 29
10 s exposure 7 1 3 25
10 s exposure and 15 s delay 10 2 0 35

She made four errors in the 25 trials and her score of 21 was higher than
the average for normal 12-year-olds and also slightly higher than the mean
(20.55) of Shah and Frith’s (1983) non-savant autistic group (mean age
13 years 3 months).

Discussion
Since the Wechsler scales are normative instruments, the profiles for indi-
viduals in the normal population are relatively flat with little difference
among the means of the subscales. Individuals with autism, however, tend
to show high scores, relative to their other scores, on the performance sub-
scales, especially the block design and object assembly. Conversely they
tend to show low scores on tasks which require retrieval of information
from long-term memory (i.e. the verbal subscales). The Wechsler scores of
BX, like many other autistic savant artists (Selfe, 1983), indicate an exag-
gerated form of this autistic profile. Although the shape of CZ’s profile on
the performance subscales is similar, the level of her scores is more like that
of a non-savant autistic individual.
A notable difference in abilities between BX and CZ lies in their per-
formance on the Benton Visual Retention Test. Both BX and CZ performed
well when they were required to copy a design, but whereas BX’s scores
were high when he was asked to reproduce a design from memory, those
of CZ were poor, reflecting their different drawing styles (BX from
memory and CZ from copying). CZ’s poor visual memory is also at odds
with reports of most other gifted artists, whether autistic or not (O’Connor
and Hermelin,1987a; 1987b; Rosenblatt and Winner, 1988; Waterhouse,
1988; Winner, 1996). It is likely that CZ’s poorer visual memory lies
behind her different drawing style, a style different from that of BX and
from most of the autistic savant artists reported in the literature. BX, along
with most other autistic savants, tends to draw mostly from memory.When
relying on visual memory the outline structure and shape are part of the
object image whereas shading, shadow and texture are much less so. Thus,
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au t i s m 3(4)
it is likely that the artist will focus on the outline and structure of the
objects to be drawn; consequently their style is likely to be more linear. If
an artist copies from an object which remains in view, it is less necessary
to capture the object by fixing its linear boundaries; the rich tonal cues can
be exploited more readily to reflect the way that the light falls upon the
object at that particular moment. Indeed, the use of tonal contrast perhaps
much more than line is appropriate for the graphic modelling of the undu-
lations of the face. So, CZ has chosen a topic and a drawing device which
might be more compatible with a copying than a memory task.
Both artists, in common with non-savant children with autism,
achieved high performance on the Embedded Figures Test which indicates
an ability to focus on detail. Although BX and CZ have different styles of
drawing and concentrate on different subject matter, they both achieve a
very detailed rendering of their chosen topics. In fact, their locally focused
strategy, as opposed to an overall plan, for tackling each drawing may be a
reflection of local rather than global processing. Mottron and Belleville
(1993; 1995) describe the way in which their autistic savant artist began
by drawing secondary detail and then progressed to other parts; the
authors contrast this strategy with that of the professional artist who first
constructs the broad outlines and then proceeds to the parts. Winner
(1996) also discusses this phenomenon in relation to Nadia and Stephen
Wiltshire. It may be that individuals with autism access their drawing skills
through abnormal processing, exhibiting a weak central coherence rather
than the normal central coherence of processing (Frith, 1989), a mental
strategy which brings together different sources of information in order to
produce a meaningful whole in terms of interpreting the world. Happé
(1994) has shown that normal children who make mistakes on the block
design task of the Wechsler scales tend to violate the pattern details but not
the overall configuration; the reverse is the case for children with autism.
Despite the autistic savants’ tendency to execute a drawing in a piecemeal
and localized fashion, they nonetheless manage to end up with an inte-
grated whole.
To what extent is the superior drawing ability of the two gifted autis-
tic artists reported in the present article attributable to their autism? They
do have some similarities with each other and indeed with the non-savant
autistic population. First of all, their non-verbal ability is higher than their
verbal; second, they exhibit repetitive behaviour and even an obsession
with their drawing activity. Thus, their focus on a non-verbal activity,
namely drawing, and their repetitive obsession with drawing their chosen
topic in a certain preferred style, might be said to be associated with their
autism. So too might their local as opposed to global strategy in planning
a picture.
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 c ox & e a m e s : d r aw i n g a n d au t i s m
However, not all individuals with autism are necessarily skilled in
drawing even in an incipient form. In order to check the possibility that
non-savant autistic children might also display the ability to draw, particu-
larly in a visually realistic way, some studies have compared their drawing
ability with that of various control samples (Fein et al., 1990; Lewis and
Boucher, 1991; Charman and Baron-Cohen, 1993; Eames and Cox, 1994).
All these studies have shown that children with autism do not perform any
higher than normal children with a corresponding mental age. It appears,
then, that visual realism is not a characteristic of non-savant autistic chil-
dren’s drawing. The notion of a connection between the artwork and the
autism in gifted autistic children is weakened by these studies.
In fact, artistically gifted autistic individuals may have much in
common with those gifted artists who are not autistic. Gifted teenage
artists have been shown to have good non-verbal spatial ability and good
recognition of hidden shapes and incomplete figures (O’Connor and
Hermelin, 1983; Hermelin and O’Connor, 1986). There is also evidence
that gifted children excel in both short- and long-term visual memory
(Rosenblatt and Winner, 1988). Although individuals with autism often
exhibit repetitive and, indeed, obsessional behaviours which may provide
them with practice in a particular domain or task, such repetition and prac-
tice are also characteristic of non-autistic savants (Howe, 1990; Ericsson et
al., 1993). Although innate aptitude and a supportive environment may be
necessary ingredients for giftedness, the importance of practice, which is
often self-imposed, should not be overlooked.
Rather than resulting from their autism, then, BX’s and CZ’s extraordi-
nary drawings may owe more to their individual predispositions and cogni-
tive abilities. CZ is particularly unusual in both her style of drawing and in
her choice of subject matter, since most autistic savants have a linear style
and prefer non-human topics.Thus, not all autistic savant artists exhibit the
same cognitive profiles or have the same kinds of drawing skill.

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