SUMMARYFive hundred and twenty‐seven male and 544 female children, aged 7–15, and 400 male and 400 female art and non‐art students were administered a shortened version of the Maitland Graves Design Judgement test. Of the 40 items used, a scale of 22 items was selected on the basis of factor analysis, and a comparison of the scores of the art and non‐art groups; this scale had high internal reliability, both for the students and the children. The scores of the children on this scale increased with increasing age, but the increase was small, although statistically very significant, and irregular; non‐art students scored higher than the children, and art students higher than non‐art students. Personality questionnaire scores were found to correlate with aesthetic sensitivity in the children. No correlations were found between sensitivity and amount of formal art teaching received at school. This, together with the relatively high scores achieved by quite young children of 7 and 8, suggests that sensitivity is not due to formal training in