Asking a child what he would wish for if he had three wishes is a frequent "projective technique" used in the psychological evaluation of children brought in because of various behavioral disturbances. Despite its common use, no normative data are available as a base line for assessing the significance of the child's wishes with respect to pathology or individual dynamics. The present study provides such data for a sample of 128 latency age boys and girls taken from two classrooms each of Grades 3 through 6, and representing mixed socioeconomic backgrounds. Ninety-eight percent of the sample fell between the ages of 7 and 12, with 94% white and 6% Negro. Three wishes from each child were secured by a group instruction technique. Wishes were sorted into eight categories: wish for (a) another person, (b) material possessions, for example, toy, (c) a specific personal skill, attribute or identity, for example, smart, movie star, (d) pets, (e) some activity, for example, traveling, (/) money, (g) more wishes, and (/i) miscellaneous, for example, world peace.Chi-squares computed for the distribution of each of the three wishes of the children indicate that the obtained frequencies deviate significantly from random expectations (p < .001 in each case). For both sexes the material category accounted for, the largest percentage of first, second, and third wishes. When the three wishes were averaged, 44% of boys' wishes and 38% of girls' wishes fell in this category. The order of choice of the other categories varied according to sex. When percentages of first, second, and third were averaged for both sexes, the order of preference
PROBLEMOne of the significant variables determining the usefulness of the Draw-AMan Test (DAM) ( l ) is the type of subject studied. This study explored the relationship between the DAM, Binet and WISC measures of intelligence on three varying populations, all seen as patients in a medical center. Group I included children referred by the psychiatry department for evaluation of emotional and/or organic factors; Group I1 included children with known or suspected neurological involvement and conspicuous behavioral disturbances referred by the pediatric or neurology departments for evaluation of emotional and/or organic factors; and Group I11 included children with no neurological or significant emotional problems referred by the pediatric or neurology departments for evaluation of intelligence only. METHODRecords used in the study were of children 14 or under for whom full scores on either the WISC or Binet and a full figure of a man drawn in pencil were available. These records were chosen randomly from a pool of records of patients seen by psychologists over the previous 6-year period. This sample of 74 children coilstituted approximately S% of the total population of 914 children.Binet and WISC scores were those computed by the original examiner. All scores on the DAM figures were computed by the author and scored by the Harris@) method. Drawings were scored without knowledge of the group to which the case was assigned or of the child's WISC or Binet IQ. Table 1 presents the means and standard deviations for the WISC, Binet IQs, and DAM IQs for each of the three groups. Pearson product moment correlations computed for the three groups for each of the comparisons between full (WISCBinet) and brief (D-A-NI) IQs reveal low positive but nonsignificant correlations for Groups I and I1 and a high positive and significant correlation for Group 111. TABLE 1. WISC-BINET .\NU ])AM MEANS, STANDARD DEVIATIONS, .\ND COIIRELITIONS FOR EACH GROUP RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONI n Groups I and 11, the DAM consistently underestimated intellectual functioning as measured by WISC and Binet IQs. I n Group 111, mean IQs are approximately the same. In 17 (77%) of the 22 cases of this group, there are 10 or less IQ points difference between the two measures. However, the variance is significantly less for the DAM than for the WISC and Binet ( t = 3.52, df = 20, p < .01).
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