Introduction

What is it?
The Draw a Man test is designed for children and adolescents. This test aims to measure a
child's perception of their surroundings, including family members and other psychological
processes on the interpersonal and cognitive levels.
Karen Machover developed the Draw a Person exam (DAP) in 1948. According to Bond,
Southers, and Sproul (2015), the DAP exam was created to enhance Stanford Binet IQ
testing with a non-verbal assessment. In 1926, Florence Goodenough created the Draw a
Man test, recognizing that the details in a person's drawing were more relevant for
evaluation (Jolly, 2010).
The administrator conducts the test by asking children to complete three different drawings
on separate sheets of paper. The children are asked to draw a man, a lady, and themselves.
No other directions are provided, and the child is allowed to create the artwork in any way he
or she likes. There is no right or incorrect sort of drawing, but the child must sketch an entire
person each time, from head to feet rather than just the face. The exam has no time
restriction, although children rarely take more than 10 or 15 minutes to finish all three
drawings. The test is non-invasive and non-threatening to children, which is one of its
benefits.

Purpose -
The test's objective is to help professionals determine the cognitive development
stages of youngsters with little to no impact from extraneous variables like special needs or
language barriers. Any further applications of the test are purely hypothetical and have not
been approved by the original author. Children are asked to draw an image of a person as
part of the psychological examination known as the Draw-A-Man Test, also called the
Goodenough/Harris drawing test. The exam is meant to assess a child's unconscious
content, personality, and level of intellectual development. Based on the data, theories
regarding the child's personality type, and emotional, cognitive, and developmental
functioning are developed.
The Draw-A-Man Test (Goodenough, 1926) has been incorporated into neuropsychologic
test batteries, used to extract personality type and unconscious data, and utilized as an
indicator of children’s intellectual development. In adult stroke patients, the test has also
been used to determine whether unilateral spatial neglect (USN) is present.

Application -
According to Ozer (2010), there are two primary contexts in which human figure drawings
can be used: predicting a child's intellectual growth and assessing the child's emotions. On
the other hand, Nagleria, McNeish, and Bardo (1991) contend that this exam can be used to
evaluate kids for issues like emotional and behavioural issues. Additionally, this test can be
incorporated into the routine psychoeducational assessment in educational settings. Each
sketch is thought to represent a distinct aspect of the subject and the person being depicted
(Yong, 2015). Drawing tests are used by many psychologists and researchers because they
think the drawings show how children communicate their thoughts and because it is
advantageous to them since the child perceives the act of drawing as fun.
Kniel and Kniel (2008), on the other hand, concluded that "...changes in the child’s drawings
of a man or a woman represent the development of cognitive complexity or intellectual
maturity" after measuring children’s intelligence using the DAP. According to Yong (2015), a
child's changes in their capacity for drawing are indicative of their intellectual or cognitive
maturation. According to their findings, one 3-year-old child drew a person who only had a
head and legs, while another 4-year-old child drew a figure who had both eyes and a mouth
in addition to arms and legs. Kubierske (2008) provided support for the notion that
intelligence may be assessed by looking at the changes in the drawings drawn, although he
stressed that these changes reflect the test-takers intellectual and physical growth rather
than their age. According to Kubierske (2008), development enables kids to put newly
acquired skills—like motor and observational skills, for example—to use. Making the drawer
unintentionally give information to the examiner and evaluating emotional disturbances were
two essential uses of DAP. Kubierske (2008) argues that the rationale for employing
projective tests stems from the understanding that attitude information is sent nonverbally
and that the subject's present beliefs, emotions, and mental state would affect the
conclusions derived. Furthermore, it has been suggested that projective tests, which convey
patients' thoughts, can be useful in detecting suicidal ideation in depressed people (Kumar,
Nizamie, Abhishek, and Prasana, 2014).

References for this -

https://scales.arabpsychology.com/2022/11/19/draw-a-person-test/

Short, C., DeOrnellas, K., & Walrath, R. (2011). Draw-A-Person Test. In Springer

eBooks (pp. 523–524). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79061-9_894

Draw-a-Man Test – Strokengine. (n.d.).

https://strokengine.ca/en/assessments/draw-a-man-test/#:~:text=Purpose%20

of%20the%20measure,in%20adult%20patients%20post-stroke