Developmental Trends in Children's Internal Body Knowledge

Literature on children's internal body knowledge has consistently indicated that knowledge about the body develops in an orderly sequence with increasing age. How much children currently know about their internal organs, however, may be influenced by the increase in health and body information available through school education programmes. As there is little recent research in this area, the present study aimed to provide an update on what Australian children currently understand about their anatomy, and to corroborate the developmental trends found in previous research. One hundred and eighty-nine school children aged 7 to 12 years were asked to draw the interior of the body in a body outline provided, with a subset of 54 children also being interviewed about their understanding of their anatomy. The developmental trends found in this study were broadly consistent with those reported in the existing literature on children's inside body knowledge, and are similar to those documented with children's human figure drawing; namely, that children's body knowledge and understanding increased with age. Although awareness of the integration of internal body parts amongst children in the present study seemed more developed than suggested in previous studies, the availability of educational resources influencing children's knowledge about their internal organs remains equivocal. Nevertheless, this research has relevance for those involved in children's health awareness and education, as well as direct implications for paediatric health care procedures.