Le dessin d'une maison. Construction d'une échelle de développement

Summary: The drawing of a house: Construction of a developmental scale. The present study aims to construct a genetic developmental scale concerning the drawing of a house. Constructed on the basis of 396 drawings produced by 198 children, this scale makes use of a marking system similar to Goodenough's scale for the drawing of a man. In order to be sensitive to genetic influences, the scale takes into account only those details whose presence increases as a function of the age of the child (ignoring those which do not vary in frequency, and those which are extremely rare). An easy-to-use 21-point scale was constructed. The validity and accuracy of the marking scale were evaluated by comparing them with those of Goodenough's man drawings, using 227 subjects aged from 2;11 from 11 ;8 years, each producing three drawings of a man and three drawings of a house. Compared with the marking scale of the man drawing, the scale proposed here shows great genetic sensitivity. As with man-drawing, house-drawing evolues with age, and may constitute an index of the degree of cognitive development ofthe child.