Art therapy involving 10 weekly sessions improved the peer relationships and socialization skills of six 10-year-old emotionally disturbed boys. (BRT)

The visual arts can be employed as a counseling vehicle for gifted, creative, and talented students. Color, image proportion, subject matter, and texture in student art facilitate assessment and guidance. Craft, drawing, painting, photography, printing, design, and sculpture activities which could help in this process are briefly described. (CB)

This paper reports on the introduction of an exploratory program on emotional development, "Drawing Emotions," through which instructors try to: (1) help the child learn how to deal with feelings; (2) ascertain relational difficulties; (3) apprehend their own questions which were not answered; and (4) interfere in the presence of risks…

Discusses the imagery and process of an art therapy support group for low-income isolated lesbians, through five related "lenses": (1) women's relational dynamics and the centrality of relationships in lesbian lives; (2) trauma; (3) socioeconomic class; (4) lesbian identity, visibility, culture, and gender; and (5) transference. (SNR)

This practicum designed and implemented a program using art therapy to improve the social competency of elementary-aged children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional/defiant disorder. Students were in a special class for children with severe emotional disturbances. The children met once a week in art therapy sessions…

Discusses the use of human figure drawings (HFDs) to uncover children's perceptions of the remarriage family. Such techniques may help counselors gain information, generate hypotheses, and plan interventions to improve children's lives. HFDs may provide counselors with the details needed to help children reframe problems and resolve conflicts.…

Investigates the drawing and copying skills of nine autistic and eight mentally retarded children matched for mental age. Results indicate a similarity of performance for the drawing tasks and significant differences concerning the copying. Discusses the specific functions performed better by the autistic children and provides illustrative…

Recognition of the handicapped child's isolation from the environment is the basis for creative art therapy across handicapping conditions (physical disabilities, mental retardation, emotional disturbance, deafness, Blindness, speech impairment, cerebral palsy). Detachment may be overcome by self expression through drawings, paintings, and…

Presents a series of pictures drawn by an autistic adult over a period of years. The pictures represent recollections of a day in his childhood. This representation is notable because of its consistent theme, as well as its reflection of the ability to reexperience and enjoy pleasant past memories. (MJP)

Reviews the results of a longitudinal study examining the development of drawing skills of six children with Williams Syndrome. Presents quantitative and qualitative data regarding recognizability, organization, and developmental progress. Reveals that, although extremely delayed, the children made consistent progress in a manner similar to normal…

Reviews two long-term case studies examining the art produced by two artistically gifted Down Syndrome patients. Their work shows a unique personal style characterized by flat, nonperspective compositions, canonical and mixed profile shapes, and symmetry. Both artists depict androgynous persons in their untutored drawings. Includes drawing samples…

Traces the development of artistic ability in a six-year-old boy with autism and mild mental retardation. Addresses questions concerning autism and artistic development including whether intellectual realism is a necessary precursor to visual realism and whether a two-dimensional photographic memory is used as opposed to three-dimensional…

Reviews the work of neurobiologist, David Marr, concerning artistic ability and autism. Summarizes Marr's theory of perceptual vision illuminating the relationships among object, observer, perceptual process, and image. Briefly reviews the cases of four autistic people with extraordinary drawing skills. (MJP)

Children experience a wide variety of life experiences that are stressful to them. Children's stories and drawings allow adults to understand children's perceptions and reactions, and picture books enable children to experience stressors safely in a supportive setting. This paper describes a storytelling and drawing intervention based on art…

Children's art not only provides a window to children's problems, it also gives them another language with which to share feelings and ideas. This book provides an overview of the multidimensional aspects of children's drawings, and is intended to assist therapists in working with children and their drawings. Chapter 1 discusses projective tests…