Differences in diagnostic drawings from children who have been reportedly sexually abused and those who have not.

Abstract

Art has been used throughout history to detect human behavior and perception. This thesis explored how the use of a particular projective drawing assessment might indicate the occurrence of sexual abuse in the lives of children ages six to nine. Past research of this type has been used with mostly school-age children who have already learned to read and write in a more advanced stage, such as ages 8 or 9 to 16. These earlier studies found that House-Tree-Person-Modified and Kinetic-Family-Modified drawings would be preferred assessment techniques for children of any age to investigate sexual abuse, because this type of abuse most often occurs in the child's home by someone the child knows. Characteristics from previous research were analyzed in this study according to how they related to the sequence of drawings, Name-Embellishment, House-Tree-Person-Modified, Kinetic-Family-Modified, and Free-Choice-Titled with four different categories, Approach to Drawing Task, Drawing Organization, Drawing Quality, and Drawing Content. Previous research supports the contention that children who have been sexually abused were more likely to draw the same items or characteristics in content. A major discrepancy with the previous data was that blind rater analysis was not used. Forty children between the ages of six and nine volunteered to be given this drawing assessment which includes an inquiry section to describe the drawings. The volunteers lived in Missouri and were from local elementary schools and mental health facilities. Twenty children were considered in the experimental group, children who were reported to the Division of Family Services and victims of sexual abuse. The experimental group consisted of 12 males and 8 females. The other 20 children were in the control group, or children who were never reported for sexual abuse. The Control group consisted of 10 males and 10 females. The scores of the control group were compared with those of the experimental group. Both groups were matched according to age and gender. The statistical procedure used was a ! test to locate differences between the experimental group and the control group in the drawing types and categories. The results indicated no significant differences between these two groups within the Drawing Content category but did find significantly more characteristics for the experimental group when isolating the Kinetic-Family-Drawing-Modified with the categories of Approach to Drawing Task and Drawing Quality and the Free Choice-Titled with the category of Approach to Drawing Task. Because of variability in raters' responses comparisons with past research should be made carefully. A more controlled testing environment, more consistencies between raters, and more homogeneity of subjects within each group is recommended for future research.