Draw-A-Person Test
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The Draw-A-Person Test (DAP, DAP test, or Goodenough-Harris Draw-A-Person Test) is a psychological projective personality or cognitive test used to evaluate children and adolescents for a variety of purposes.
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[edit] History
Dr. D.B. Harris first proposed this test as a measurement of intellectual maturity in 1963,[citation needed] and its popularity grew over the next few decades.
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[edit] Uses
One common use of the DAP test is as a rough evaluator of IQ and cognitive ability. Clinicians who use the test claim that the amount of details that a child puts into the drawing compared to others of a similar age can be used (among other factors) to evaluate the child's intelligence. However, older children, upper- or middle class children, children with mainstreamed education, and other populations have too much of an advantage over others in this test, which severly stunts its ability to evaluate intelligence.[1] However, many clinicians favor the use of the test because of its low reliance on language fluency, and for the fact that the child is not given a tight time limit, which allows children with more laid back personalities to complete the task at their own pace.
Some psychological practitioners use the DAP test as an evaluation of a child's level of emotional disturbance or to investigate their potential history of sexual abuse. However, there is no empirical basis for doing so, and the figure a child draws has little or no connection to abuse history or to their level of emotional distrubance.[2]
[edit] Nature of the test
Depending on the clinician administering the test, the child is instructed to draw between one and three figures (sometimes they are a man, a woman, and him or herself). The child has fifteen minutes to do so without the interference of the clinician. When used as a cognitive test, it is then scored according to one of a few available scoring procedures. [1] When used as a personality test or a test of emotional disturbance, the clinician often uses his or her own impression of the drawing and what it may mean.
[edit] References
- Ter Laack, J.; de Goede, M.; Aleva, A. (2005). "The Draw-A-Person Test: An Indicator of Children's Cognitive and Socioemotional Adaptation?". Heldref Publications.
- Williams, Simon D.; Wiener, Judy; MacMillan, Harriet (2005). "Build-A-Person Technique: An examination of the validity of human-figure features as evidence of child sexual abuse.". Elsevier Science.
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