Emotional and Organic Characteristics in Drawings of Deficient Readers

Abstract

Characteristics of House-Tree-Person drawings were compared for problem-free, good readers, deficient readers with primary emotional problems, and two groups with specific reading deficit: perceptual-motor difficulties with and without neurological symptoms. Characteristics were scored for five emotional reaction patterns and an organic pattern. Specific reading deficit groups exhibited fewer normal and more withdrawn, constricted, dependent, and organic patterns than good readers, with greatest differences among the younger boys of average intelligence and with neurological involvement. Boys with emotionally based deficit differed from good readers only with respect to lower normal scores for younger boys, and intellectual level was unrelated to reaction patterns. Percentages of correct discriminations based on composite drawing scores suggested that projective test data can aid in differential diagnosis of reading deficit in advantaged boys, particularly in the earliest school years.

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