Assessment • 125In 1974 Prout and Phillips^4 proposed a Kinetic School Drawing (KSD), to be done fol-
lowing a KFD. Klepsch asked children to draw a classroom and to do portraits of authority
figures—teacher, doctor, policeman—to assess a youngster’s sense of himself in relation to
others. Following in the footsteps of Wayne Dennis, who studied group values through chil-
dren’s drawings, he reviewed other such studies (Klepsch & Logie, 1982).
Standardization in Drawing Tasks
Most projective drawing tasks developed by psychologists use standardized materials—
usually 8” x 11” paper, a No. 2 pencil, and when “chromatic,” specific colors and types of
crayons. Instructions for each of the drawings are also clearly specified, as are the guidelines
for any post-drawing interrogation (PDI). Such standardization is needed to establish group
norms, to which clinicians can then relate individual performance. Like norms, precise
scoring methods are also needed. For example, one version of the Draw-a-Person Test used
templates, in an attempt to more objectively measure size and placement.
A systematic approach to test administration, clear identification of items to be scored,
and the creation of rating manuals are tedious but necessary steps on the road to reliability.
One aspect is test-retest reliability—how consistent anyone’s performance is on a particu-
lar instrument. The other is inter-rater reliability—how similar raters’ judgments are with
any specific scale. Whether the instrument measures what it is supposed to—validity—is
another heavily debated issue. It is the source of most of the criticism leveled at all projective
techniques, especially drawings.
Nevertheless, despite negative findings in all of the experimental research, projective draw-
ings did and still do appeal to clinicians from many disciplines. One of the most prolific writ-
ers in this area was a pediatrician named Joseph Di Leo, who published a series of books on
children’s drawings (1970, 1974, 1977, 1983). Di Leo’s goal was a differential diagnosis of “the
unusual and the deviant” in the context of “the usual and the normative.” His diagnostic bat-
tery included both copying tasks and specific topics and was popular among some art therapists
working with children, as he published during a period of rapid growth in the profession.
Art and Psychopathology
In the early 1970s, a group of clinicians published Human Figure Drawings in Adolescence,
using pictures collected at a medical clinic (Schildkrout, Shenker, & Sonnenblick, 1972).
The idea was that drawings could be efficient screening devices for potential psychiatric
problems. Considerable attention was given to signs of emotional disturbance, of organicity,
and of danger, that is, “acting-out” of any sort, especially suicide or homicide. The search for
warning signs in artwork, whether in a prescribed task or in spontaneous products, can be
critical, especially in acute psychiatric settings or in the criminal justice system. Art thera-
pists and others have long sought to identify graphic clues to a variety of diagnostic puzzles
(Cohen & Cox, 1995; Gantt & Tabone, 1998).
Most of the early projective drawing literature—like art therapist Brown’s (1967) Psycho-
Iconography or psychologist McElhaney’s (1969) book on human figure drawings (HFDs)—
was an attempt to familiarize clinicians with typical drawing signs in patients with different
disorders. “Art as a Reflection of Mental Status” was the title of psychiatrist Paul Fink’s
contribution to the first issue of Art Psychotherapy in 1973. In fact, there are many ways in
which art products can help in differential diagnosis. But it is far from simple, as experi-
enced art therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists know. Research attempts to validate
the meanings of individual drawing signs—like shading indicating anxiety—have found
them to be less successful than global ratings.