7: Results

The processual documents presented here offer an initial exemplary compilation of some, but not all, morphologically described characteristics. Thus, they do not constitute a general or representative empirical foundation, which would allow concluding investigation of the morphological findings. This relativisation aside, they do, however, permit an initial clarification of the morphological interpretations in question:

• The earliest aspects of an acting of children with pencils and paper can prove to be, from a processual perspective, mere traces, that is, appearances with no identifiable formation of a single graphic aspect and a contrast to other discrete graphic aspects. In these cases, they correspond either to sensomotorically motivated or accidental quasi-mechanical events. Such mere traces, non-intentional aspects, can only be identified in a processual perspective, and a morphological assessment has to be relativised accordingly.
• Manifestations that may prove to be traces from a processual perspective, can, however, be narrowed down. Possible morphological misinterpretations relate to – applying the designations we used – either only very vague single forms with general line direction or correspondingly vague open single forms with specific leading of the line. Moreover, possible morphological misinterpretations may concern also conjunctions, preforms of aggregates, variations in size, length or line thickness width.
• However, such traces usually only represent individual aspects, which are seen alongside intentional and formal aspects in early graphic expressions from the second year of life onwards. (The earliest expressions in the first year of life are the exception to this, as well as products that have very few individual aspects. There is in fact only one recording in this archive for which no intentional graphic differentiation is noticeable from a processual perspective.)
• This relativisation of possible misinterpretations aside, all morphologically described early graphic attributes can also prove to be intentional and formal expressions from a processual perspective, and this confirmation of intentionality in very early graphic expressions represents one of the central results of this study.
• The same applies to an assessment of intentionality in verbal designation of graphic aspects, as they are interpreted morphologically, incorporating early designations of individual colours.
• This is also related to the processual confirmation of an early impression of graphic aspects in the child in question.
• The morphological assessment of intentionality and differentiation of analogy formations can also be demonstrated in its main characteristics using the picture processes.
• Early picture processes can, however, reveal that the morphological assessment of analogies, indeed the corresponding assessment of all relationships of graphic aspects to non-graphic aspects, is insufficient to derive an inter-individual structure of their development. Written commentary may not in many cases represent the actual expressions of the children in question, and correspondingly complex references remain morphologically obscure. Consequently, the early development and differentiation of analogies and other references to non-graphic aspects cannot be derived solely using morphological descriptions. Such a derivation requires in turn the incorporation of processual studies.

Thus, within the limits of the present study mentioned above, we conclude that the morphological description of early pictures also proves to be identifiable in its main aspects from a processual perspective. 

However, relativisations have to be considered. They concern the necessary caution when interpreting very early products on paper, particularly in the first year of life, when interpreting early isolated manifestations, when determining the picture age for the appearance of individual graphic attributes and groups of attributes, and when deriving general conclusions, for which the morphological assessment proves to be fragmentary.

The corresponding corrections required in the inter-individual description of the graphic development – we avoid the expression "general graphic development", so as not to obscure the question of context and codes – relate to only a few graphic aspects, either as additional differentiations or as corrections with regard to the description of their earliest occurrence.

The exception to this is the description of analogy formations and other relationships of graphic aspects to non-graphic aspects. The corrections required in the inter-individual description of the graphic development are substantial in this regard.

The examination of indices, expressions, and in a strict sense coded pictorial aspects (symbolic aspects) remains unresolved in this study. This examination must be left to future processual studies.