140 • Introduction to Art Therapy
deaf children (Silver, 1978), she looked for ways to assess competencies through art. Silver
used her own artistry to create the 50 pictorial Stimulus Drawing Cards that serve as stimuli
for the Silver Drawing Test (Silver, 2001).
There are three tasks: (l) Draw from Imagination, (2) Draw from Observation, and (3)
Predictive Drawing. The first involves selecting two images from the cards and combining
them in a drawing that tells a story. In the years since the test was first developed, it has
been continually revised, and it has been used with a wide range of people, including elderly
stroke patients and at-risk adolescents (Silver, 2002, 2007). The three-task battery is now
called the Silver Drawing Test of Cognition & Emotion (SDT) (Silver, 2002, 2007).
Although the test was originally designed to measure “cognitive and creative skills,” like
the psychologists who saw more in person drawings than IQ scores, Silver soon realized that
feelings were being expressed too. She therefore published the Draw-A-Story test, using the
first task of the battery, to screen “for depression and emotional needs.”
Indeed, for many years the art therapists of the Miami-Dade public schools have been
using her instrument as a screening device and to assess the effectiveness of their work
(Silver, 2005). On the DVD (6.14), you can observe Ellen Horovitz conducting the SDT with
a deaf adolescent (A) and Peg Dunn-Snow conducting one with a young boy (B).
Magazine Photo Collage
The Magazine Photo Collage was elaborated by Helen Landgarten in a 1993 book. Pointing
out that the technique is relatively unthreatening and accessible to people of any ethnic
background, she outlined an assessment protocol. Given a box of People Pictures and one of
Miscellaneous Items, the client is asked to: (l) Select pictures that catch your attention, paste
them on paper, and write or tell what comes to mind. (2) Pick out 4–6 pictures of people,
paste on another paper, and write or tell what you imagine each person is THINKING and
what he/she is SAYING, (3) Pick out 4–6 pictures that stand for something GOOD and
something BAD, paste down and tell what they mean. (4) Pick out ONE picture from the
People Box, paste down, and write or tell what is HAPPENING to that person. Ask “Do you
Figure 6.14 Rawley Silver, Silver Drawing Test.