Children's Human Figure Drawings as Measures of Intelligence: The Comparative Validity of Three Scoring Systems

Abstract

This study examined the scoring systems of Goodenough and Harris (1963), Naglieri (1988), and Ayres and Reid (I1966) for using human figure drawings to assess the intellectual abilities of children. Drawing scores of 100 children, aged 6 to 15, were compared to their performance on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R), while the drawing scores of a separate group of 100 children, aged 6 to 15, were compared to their performance on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-III (WISC-I1I). All three drawing systems correlated significantly and at similar levels with the WISC-R as well as the WISC-III, suggesting that the far shorter and more recent Naglieri technique may save clinicians time and effort. None of the drawing systems had a pattern of significantly different validity coefficients for children of varying ages or intelligence scores.