Expected and exceptional items on human figure drawings and IQ scores of children age 5 to 12
✍ Scribed by Elizabeth Munsterberg Koppitz
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1967
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 209 KB
- Volume
- 23
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0021-9762
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
In an earlier study(5), it was suggested that developmental items on human figure drawings (HFDs) can be grouped according to their frequency of occurrence. Items that appear on 86% or more of all HFDs of children at a given age level were designated as Expected items. It was hypothesized that the absence of Expected items was diagnostically significant and would reveal mental immaturity or retardation. Developmental items that occur on 16 to 85% of all HFDs were called Common or Not Unusual. These items are present too often to be considered rare, but not often enough to be included among the basic Expected items. It was concluded therefore that neither the presence nor the absence of Common or Not Unusual items was diagnostically significant. Items that are found on less then 16% of all HFDs were called Exceptional items. It was hypothesized that these items would only occur on HFDs of children with above average mental maturity. This study investigates the validity of these hypotheses.