*OP there has been some interesting work done on children’s drawing styles, and the average child (and adult in fact) sticks at and remains around the age of 8 (IIRC) for drawing style, probably because it isn’t really taught as a serious discipline in schools.
So most people’s drawings will progress gradually in style until around the level of an average 8 year old and generally stick there.
I would think boys in particular are less socialised to spend their time drawing, too; whereas girls often take it up as a hobby and do it alongside other girls, it isn’t really something that boys tend to encourage each other to do.
For all these reasons I would not use drawing as any kind of metric to assess a child on skills or abilities elsewhere.*
I completely agree.
These drawings are of a standard that my OH and mother would produce- in fact many adults I think.
My own children have no particular artistic talent, but had a huge benefit of a visiting art teacher for regular art lessons all the way through primary school.
By 10 years or so the whole school was producing artwork to an astounding level, simply because thay had been taught to draw, and all that encompasses, being taught how to observe, ideas about line, form, texture, light, perspective. Without teaching most of us are stick men artists.
I never studied art until I was 17. I was a stick person artist. Clashing subjects on my timetable meant that art was a subject. I always considered myself crap at art, but the teacher took me under his wing, I spent every spare moment in the art department, he would take time during his lunch break to give me one to one lessons, I would dive up there after school to practice in the studio.
Within a year I had passed A level art, simply because I was taught.
There is a myth that art is something we are born with that we can either draw or we can't. There are of course very noteable exeptions, but for the vast majority our drawing skills can be improved 1000% with good teaching.