KINETIC FAMILY DRAWINGS AND CLINICAL JUDGMENT: AN EVALUATION OF JUDGES\u27 ABILITY TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN THE K-F-D\u27S OF ABUSING, CONTROL, AND CONCERNED MOTHERS.

The purposes of the present study were: (1) to investigate the validity of the Kinetic Family Drawing (Burns & Kaufman, 1970) for use in child-abuse evaluations; (2) to explore variables which may affect the accuracy of clinical judgments based on the drawings. Drawings and social history data were obtained from three groups of mothers, 21 in each group, defined as Abusing, Control, and Concerned mothers. Twelve judges who had varied professional experience and assessment expertise rendered judgments about the mothers\u27 group membership. Judgments were made using: (1) drawings alone; (2) social histories alone; (3) drawings plus social histories combined. Additionally, the artistic quality of the draings was rated by three artists. Results indicated that: (1) judges could not differentiate betwen the mothers\u27 drawings; (2) naive judges were more accurate than clinicians; (3) training in drawing interpretation did not improve judges\u27 accuracy; (4) judgments based on drawings plus social histories were more accurate than judgments based on drawings alone; (5) artistic quality of drawings did not influence judgments of mothers\u27 group membership. Implications of these results were discussed, and suggestions for future research were offered.Dept. of Psychology. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1984 .H685. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-04, Section: B, page: 1289. Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1984