Diagnostic Value of the "Table Drawing" Technique during Neuropsychological Assessment of Children Aged 4–17 Years

Abstract

The method of "Table Drawing" is used in child neuropsychology to evaluate projective representations. At the same time, a unified system for assessing the technique performance, age standards, and information about the validity are absent. The present study aimed to investigate the diagnostic value of the technique during the neuropsychological examination of children aged 4–17 years. A survey of 636 persons was conducted, 411 of them boys and 225 girls. The overall technique performance was evaluated in the diagnostic process. Regardless of the diagnostician, the drawings were evaluated by the level of projective representations and the geometric properties. Age standards of technique execution were obtained. Based on the material of 597 diagnostic protocols, the contribution of the state of 14 higher mental functions and psychological characteristics to the success of the test performance was studied. Constructive-spatial functions have the greatest weight; however, the efficiency also depends on visual gnosis, dynamic praxis, and thinking. The diagnostic value of the method is different at different ages, so neuropsychological interpretation of its execution results should depend on the age of the subject.

Keywords

• developmental neuropsychology
• quantitative methods in neuropsychology
• age-stratified scores
• visual-spatial functions
• projective representations