The Draw-A-Person Test

The Draw-a-Person Test is simple: the child is required to create a head-to-toe illustration of a man, a woman, and themselves.

The test was developed by Florence Goodenough in 1926, and its construction is described in her book Measurement of Intelligence by Drawings.

Scores are based on sixty-four separate items, including presence and absence of detail and proportion of body parts.

As an indication of intelligence, there are some obvious advantages to the use of test like this; a purely visual task eliminates the influence of variability related to communication skills or language spoken at home. Despite this, drawing ability is determined to some extent by previous opportunities to draw, and of course I would question the reliability of a test that depends so heavily on the largely subjective interpretations of a researcher.