The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of verbal experience on children's creative expression and to develop more precise means for interpreting and evaluating children's art. Two questions were of interest: (1) Does the experimental approach described here enable children to resist forces tending to cause stereotyped artistic expression? and (2) Does verbal stimulation help children express artistically concepts of greater complexity? Subjects were eighty-five 5- and 6-year-olds who were divided into an experimental and a control group. Each group had art instruction once a week for a year; the control group was provided with a humanistic discussion-based art program and the experimental group was exposed to an intense verbal experience specifically designed to encourage the child to state his egocentric thought as verbal symbols. Results suggested that children could learn to resist forces tending toward stereotyped art expression. Other results, relative to expression of concepts, were not statistically significant. Included with the study is a detailed discussion relating creative expression to the levels of child development. An appendix describes the program used with the control group, titled the Humanistic Approach to Art Education in the Elementary School. (MS)