Goodenough-Harris Drawing Test
WHAT IS DAP TEST?
It is a psychological projective personality and cognitive test used to evaluate children and adolescents for a variety of purposes. It is a skill test to measure a child's mental age through a figure drawing task. It estimates the progress of learning visual, cognitive, and motor skills by having the candidate draw a human figure, scoring the drawing for presence and quality of figure features, and comparing the score to children's typical rate of acquisition of figure features. The aim of the test is to assess how the child perceives the people around them including the family and other psychological activities on, interpersonal and cognitive setting. Test is used to evaluate children and adolescence for variety of purpose. It is a test where the subject is asked to draw a picture of a man, a woman, and themselves. No further instructions are given and the pictures are analyzed on a number of dimensions. A test used to measure nonverbal intelligence or to screen emotional or behavioral disorders. Good enough concluded through research that the amount of detail in child’s drawing could be used as an effective tool to assess levels of maturity. It is a nonverbal test and can be administered to children aged 2 years and above.
History
This test was originally developed by florence goodenough in 1926, this test was first known as the goodenough draw- a- man test.Goodenough first became interested in figure drawing when she wanted to find a way to supplement the stanford- binet intelligence test with a non- verbal measure.This test was developed to assess maturity in young people. This led to the development of the first official assessment using figure drawing, the draw- a- man test.Over the years, The test has been revised many times with added measures for assessing Intelligence. Harris later revised the test including drawings of a man,woman, and of themselves. Now considered as the Goodenough- Harris Test.In 1949, Karen Machover developed the first measure of figure drawing as a personality assessment with the draw- A Person test. Machover did a lot of work with disturbed adolescents and adults and used the test to assess people of all ages. She found that the features of the figures drawn, reflect underlying attitudes, concerns, and personality traits.
Machover used a qualitative approach in her interpretation considering individual drawing characteristics. But others have suggested a more quantitative approach that can be more widely used analyzing selected characteristics that are in an index of deeper meanings.Soon after the development of the test, psychologists started considering the test for measures of differences in personality as well as intelligence.
The most popular quantitative approach was developed by elizabath koppitz. She developed a measure of assessment that has a list of emotional indicators including size of figures, omission of body parts and some additional “special features”. the total number of the indicators is simply added up to provide a number that represents the likeness of the disturbance.
Advantages
· Easy to Administer
· No strict formats
· Relatively culture free
· Can assess people with communication problems
Disadvantages
• Restricted amount of hypothesis can be developed.
• Relatively non- verbal but, may have some problems during inquiry.
Analysis
1. HEAD:
The head is the center for intellectual power, social balance, and control over impulses. A disproportionate head suggests that the subject is having difficulty in one of these areas. Disproportionate head can also be drawn by someone who has brain damage, severe headaches, or other sensitivity of the head. Large head- paranoid, narcissistic, intellectually righteous, or vain, anything having to do with a large ego.
2. Timing- people who draw it last shows disturbances with interpersonal relationships.
3. Neck- the neck often represents the connection between the head and the body an under emphasis may represent one feeling a disconnection between these two things and could suggest: schizophrenia. However, underemphasize could also suggests feelings of physical inadequacy.
4. FACE
a. omitting: omission of facial features is an expression of avoidance of social problems.
b. eyes: reveals inner image of the self.
i. emphasis: suspicious of the outside world.
ii. detail: concern with social functions; a male who draws eyelashes shows homosexual tendencies.
iii. eyes closed/ no pupil: emotionally immature or people who want to shut out the world.
iv. piercing eyes: paranoid schizophrenic
c. eyebrow: an emphasis on good or bad grooming.
d. nose: sexual symbol; emphasis indicates sexual difficulty, sexual immaturity, inferiority or other sexual insufficiencies.
e. importace of food, profane language, and temper tantrums.
f. teeth: sign of aggression.
g. closed mouth: shutting the mouth against something, wanting to keep something in, especially a homosexual experience
h. wide grinning mouth- seeks approval.
i. hair: Messy hair may represent a feeling of immortality while more wavy and glamorous hair can mean a person is sexually chin: if it is not included, it may be a way of compensating for weakness, indecision, or a fear of responsibility; it can be interpreted as having a strong drive to be socially forceful and dominant.
j. lips: girls who draw cupid- bow lips are considered sexually precocious. full lips on a male represents narcissism. people who draw something in the mouth indicates trends.
k. mouth: most often distorted in people with sexual difficulties.
• over emphasis- emphasized immature.
• contact features like legs, arms, feet and hands: the movement of contact features is an important element. The amount of movement of the features is suggested to decrease with age and is thought to represent the amount of contact one has with the outside world.
• arms and hands: represent ego development and social adaptation.
• omitted: represents a complete withdrawal from the environment. if a male omits a female’s arms, then he has been rejected by his mother and unaccepted by females. if one omits hands, they are thought to have a lack of confidence in social contexts.
• shading: too vigorously shaded hands could indicate feelings of guilt in regard to aggressive impulses.
• placement of arms: extended arms represent good relationship with the environment or spontaneity. if they are wasted the individual could have a low sense of physical reality.
• placement of hands: behind the back may represent glamor aspirations for girls, in the pocket could indicate withdrawal from society or feelings of guilt about masturbation.
• Fingers: fingers are especially important because of their connection with an individual’s personal identity and are mostly used to represent levels of aggression. if they are over exaggerated they can be indicators of guilt. How long they are may represent levels of aggression, too long may mean the person is overly aggressive, too short, means they are reserved.
• Toes: often not included in drawings because of shoes, but if they are, it is a sign of aggression. if a female shows painted toenails, they may have heightened female aggression.
Interpretation
• large head- fantasy is primary source of satisfaction
• small head- feelings of weakness and intellectual inferiority
• long hair- ambivelant sexual fantasies
• tiny eyes- strong visual curiosity
• large ears- hypersensitivity to criticisms
• triangle nose- immaturity
• pointed nose- possible acting out tendencies
• tiny mouth- denial of oral dependent needs
• hands behind the back- possibly guilt feelings for manual activity
• tiny feet- insecurity
• high heel shoes- posible homosexual tendencies
• stick figure- possibe depression
• opposite sex drawn first- conflict with sexual identification.
DAP: A GREAT WAY TO TELL THE KIDS’ INTELLIGENCE
• Test administration involves the administrator requesting the children to complete three individual drawings- a man, a woman and him/herself on separate pieces of paper. The administrator may ask the children to include the name, age, feelings or what is his/ her drawing is doing at the moment aside from that no further instruction is given. And the child is free to make the drawing whichever way he/she pleases to there is no right or wrong type of drawing, although the child must make a drawing of a whole person each time. The test has no time limit.
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