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Understanding of Children Through Drawings

Article information

J Korean Med Assoc. 2003;46(4):335-344
Publication date (electronic) : 2003 April 30
doi : https://doi.org/10.5124/jkma.2003.46.4.335
Min-Sup Shin, Ph.D.
Division of Child-Adolescent Psychiatry, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul National University Children Hospital, Korea. shinms@snu.ac.kr

Abstract

The world-wide universal language of children is drawing. This non-verbal language gives us an insight into how children see, feel, and think about the world around them. For children younger than age 11, drawing is a very effective window through which they can express and reflect their wishes, emotions, thoughts and concerns. Drawing is useful for all children, including those too young to have yet developed language skills. This tool is equally effective when working with children who have been diagnosed with communication disorders. This paper reviews the historical background of the development of the drawing test as a diagnostic tool. In addition, the characteristics of drawings are reviewed according to the stage of child development. Even though a projective drawing gives us lots of hypothetical information regarding a child's internal psychological and emotional state, it is not a formal psychological test in a strict sense. Therefore, it is inaccurate to reach a conclusion about children's psychological problems based only on clues from a drawing. Moreover, it is important to get additional information through means such as post-drawing inquiry and interviews with family members.

Keywords: Projective drawing; House-Tree-Person; Test; Kinetic Family Drawing

References

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Copyright © 2003 Korean Medical Association

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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