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Representational development of the human figure in familial retardates
Insights
Familially retarded children demonstrate comparable or superior human figure drawing skills compared to normal children, suggesting development, not defect, drives performance in representational tasks.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Child Psychology
- Cognitive Development
Background:
- Theories of familial intellectual disability often propose either a developmental lag or a fundamental defect.
- Understanding representational development is crucial for differentiating these theories.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare the human figure representational development of normal children and children with familial intellectual disability.
- To investigate whether performance on representational tasks supports a developmental or defect hypothesis of familial intellectual disability.
Main Methods:
- Utilized five tasks assessing human figure representation: Drawing a Person, Figure Completion, two Form Puzzles, and Drawing on Dictation.
- Matched 34 normal children (ages 3-0 to 5-10) with 34 familially retarded children (ages 4-4 to 13-1) on mental age, socioeconomic status, public school attendance, and family structure.
Main Results:
- Familially retarded children performed equally well as, and sometimes better than, normal children on representational tasks.
- Performance across all tasks was primarily correlated with mental age.
Conclusions:
- Findings support a developmental theory of familial intellectual disability, where cognitive abilities mature over time.
- The results refute a "defect" hypothesis, indicating that familial intellectual disability does not inherently impair representational abilities at a given mental age.
Abstract:
Representational development of the human figure of normal and familially retarded children was examined. Five tasks were employed: Drawing a Person, Figure Completion, two Form Puzzles, and Drawing on Dictation. Ss included 34 normal children, ages 3-0 to 5-10, and 34 familially retarded children, ages 4-4 to 13-1. The two groups were matched for mental age, socioeconomic status, public school attendance, and intact family structure. Results indicate that familial retardates performed as well as normals and at times surpassed them. Performance on these representational tasks is, predominantly, a function of mental age which lends support to a "developmental" theory of familial retardation and refutes the "defect" hypothesis.