Assessing the Use of Rawley Silver's Draw-A-Story for Depression Indicators and Peer Victimization in Elementary School Age Children
This study evaluates the effectiveness of art therapy as a non-threatening assessment tool for depression indicators in children involved in bullying at school. The goal of this study was to test for correlations between Rawley Silver's Draw-A-Story (DAS) Form A (a projective drawing test for indications of depression in children), with valid and reliable measurements of depression symptoms using the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI), as well as to test for maladaptive social problems using a revised version of the Delaware Bully Questionnaire. The objective was to obtain evidence to support the use of Rawley Silver's Draw-A-Story (DAS) Form A as an alternative to self-report measures to identify both the bully and victim based upon their shared element of depression. The study was conducted at one public elementary school in Northern California, with a sample size of 42 subjects between the ages of five and eleven years old. The overall results indicated, very minimal correlation relationships among the three test measures. The results indicated that there was only a weak correlation between the DAS and the CDI, and an even weaker correlation between the DAS and both the Bully and Victim scales. However, this may have been due to the research design rather than the limits of the DAS being used as an assessment tool. The results of this research supported the findings of past research regarding depressed children having a distortion in information processing.
Art Therapy, Depression, Elementary School, Counseling Psychology
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