Simple Categorization of Human Figure Drawings at 5 Years of Age as an Indicator of Developmental Delay

ABSTRACT

Purpose: To elucidate the association between developmental stage of human figure drawing(HFD) and fine motor control, visual perception, and further investigate its potential to be used for screening developmental delay.

Methods: Participants were 301 children at 5½ years of age, 176 born preterm and 125 at term, whose HFDs were categorized into six developmental stages. Motor-Free-Visual-Perception Test, Movement-ABC, Performance Intelligence Quotient (PIQ: Wechsler Scale), and the Visual-Motor Integration test were used. Fine motor functions were explored using ImageJ.

Results: Age-expected HFDs were drawn by 87% of the children, while 13%, mostly preterm boys, drew immature ones. Stages of HFD were related to both PIQ and Movement-ABC. Visuomotor control and visual perception significantly explained the HFD. The sensitivity and specificity of HFD as a screening tool was moderate to good.

Conclusions: HFD is influenced by visual perception and visuomotor control and can be used for screening developmental delay at preschool age.

KEYWORDS:

• Developmental delay
• human figure drawing
• fine motor control
• preterm children
• visual perception

Acknowledgments

We wish to express our deepest gratitude to the participants of Stockholm Neonatal Project and to Dr. Georgiy Khodus for his help in ImageJ measurements.

Disclosure Statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Supplementary data

Supplementary data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

We gratefully acknowledge financial support from Stiftelsen Sunnerdahls Handikappfond (24/11) and from the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (2006-0936).