SDT: The Brazilian Standardization of the Silver Drawing Test of Cognition and Emotion

Abstract

The authors standardized the Silver Drawing Test of Cognition and Emotion (SDT) (Silver, 1983, 1990, 1996) on approximately 2,000 Brazilian children and adults and compared their findings with those reported in the test manual. The Brazilian findings confirmed the dependence of SDT cognitive scores on level of education as well as their independence from gender. Analyses of variance yielded differences in school grade and type of school. Growth in test scores was most pronounced in the early grades. Adults whose education had been limited to elementary or high school had lower mean scores than most children. College graduates had higher scores than high school seniors; private school students had higher scores than public school students. In emotional content, the authors found more negative than positive responses, and the rate of ambivalence was very high. They also found that strongly and moderately negative themes were frequent among students in the seventh and eighth grades. In addition, Brazilian subjects were compared with the samples of U.S. subjects reported in the SDT test manual. The trend of growth in mean scores was similar in both cultures, increasing gradually with grade and age level. Implications of these findings are also discussed.