DRAWING
Children's art, especially a drawing, represents one of the
delights of childhood. The child's artistic endeavors are mainly produced for
pleasure and the exploration of art media. They can also be used for
developmental and therapeutic assessment.
Children's drawings obviously show artistic development and
expression. In educational and clinical settings, they can be vehicles for
assessing a child's personality, intellectual development, communication skills, and emotional
adjustment. Children's drawings can also aid in helping to diagnose learning
disabilities. Law enforcement officers, social workers, and counselors often
have children draw traumatic events, especially when they lack the
communication skills to explain what they have witnessed or experienced.
Children may also feel distanced from the traumatic event by drawing it and
talking about what is happening in the picture, as if discussing a character in
a book or on television.
Color analysis has often been a means of determining a child's
emotional state. A lot of black or red recurring in a child's drawing may be a
troublesome sign. Black often is an indication of depression or feeling
hopeless or restricted. Red may indicate intense anger. Blues and greens are
usually calm colors, and yellows and oranges often indicate cheerfulness. Therapists are
not ordinarily concerned if a child does one drawing in one of the troublesome
colors, but may want to investigate a series of dark drawings, especially if
the content is also frightening or disturbing. Therapists may use the
therapeutic session as a means of emotional release and may encourage a child
to create drawings that express their deep fears and angers. Drawings in this
case are not assessment instruments, but become therapeutic tools.
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