Human figure drawings of learning disabled and normal children at three age levels.

Abstract

It is commonly believed that the human figure drawings of learning disabled children show greater immaturity than those of normal children of equivalent age, and this difference is attributed to differences in the children's body image (e.g., Alpern, 1969). However, the documentation appears to derive from case reports. In the present study, figure drawings were collected from 51 learning disabled children and 130 normal children enrolled in classes in a suburban Buffalo school system. Since the former children were grouped according to three age levels (7 to 10 yr., 10 to 13 yr., and 13 to 15 yr.), three groups of normal children were drawn from classes containing children of roughly comparable age ranges (Grade 2, 7 to 9 yr.; Grades 4 and 5, 9 to 12 yr.; and Grade 8, 12 to 16 yr.) . Mean ages were 8.7 yr. and 7.0 yr. respectively for rhe youngest learning disabled and normal groups; 10.0 yr. and 11.3 yr. for the intermediate age groups; and 13.5 and 13.3 yr. for the oldest groups. The numbers of subjects were 16 and 25 respectively for the youngest learning disabled and normal groups, 18 and 46 for the intermediate age groups, and 17 and 59 for the oldest groups. The children's drawings were scored for whether or not a body was included, and also for the presence or absence of 15 head-related items (eyes, eyebrows, eyelashes, pupils, nose, two-dimensional nose, nostrils, ears, ears in correct position and proportion, mouth, lips, chin, neck, hair, and facial hair). The scoring criteria were based mainly on Harris (1963). Scoring of presence or absence of features was done by the male student after ensuring he was blind to the treatment group of each drawing. Contrary to expectations, no differences were found in the human figure drawings of the learning disabled and normal children among the preadolescent age groups, except that the learning disabled children in the intermediate age group were more likely to draw eyelashes than the normal children were (xI2 = 5 34, p < .O5). Among the adolescent children, the drawings of the learning disabled children were actually superior to those of the normal children on 5 of the 16 scoring items, and showed no differences on the other 11. The learning disabled children were significantly more likely to include nostrils (xl = 4.57, p < .05), ears (XI' = 5.10, p < .05), ears in correct position and proportion (x,' = 4.33, p < .05), and a chin (x~% 9.95, p < .01). Furthermore, this greater completeness on head-related items among the learning disabled children's drawings was not made at the expense of other features since these children were also more likely than normals to include bodies (x' = 6.17, p < .05). The results suggest that children with learning disabilities do not necessarily produce inferior human figure drawings and perhaps do not necessarily have body-image problems, although in individual cases such conclusions might be warranted. The greater attention to head details shown by the older learning disabled children than by the normal children is consistent with Machover's (1949) hypothesis that emphasis on the head is found in the drawings of children with severe reading problems and disability in other subjecn.