The present study assessed if children would present different information in drawings of emotion eliciting stimuli when drawing for an adult or a child audience. This question is important as children’s drawings of emotive topics are used in interview and diagnostic settings often without reference to whether children alter their graphic communication depending on the audience of their drawings. Ninety‐five 6‐year‐olds (54 boys and41 girls) were allocated to three groups: the reference group, the child audience group and the adult audience group. The reference group were not informed of an audience and the child and adult audience groups received audience appropriate instructions. All children completed a drawing session where they first drew a neutral uncharacterised figure, followed by drawings of a sad and a happy figure in counterbalanced order. Affect ratings towards the drawn topics were taken immediately after completion of each drawing.
The findings demonstrated that children did consider who would be viewing their drawings when communicating affective information and included different features for different audiences within their drawings. The study showed that children altered positive and negative affective elements of their drawings depending upon whether they were drawing for a peer or an adult audience highlighting the need to understand the role of the audience when interpreting children’s drawings for emotional information about the child artists. It is posited that further systematic research is required to continue to examine communicative aspects of children’s drawings.