Raymond A. Dunleavy

Early kindergarten identification of academically not-ready children by use of human figure drawing developmental score

The Koppitz Human Figure Drawing (HFD) Test was examined for use in early identification of academically not-ready kindergarten children. HFD developmental scores of a group of children who later “passed” the Metroplitan Readiness Test (stanine score ≥4), as required for admission to the first-grade classroom, were compared with the HFD scores of a group of children who later “failed” the Metropolitan Readiness Test (stanine score ≤3). Evaluation of the test data showed that the optimum HFD score cut-off point for prediction of nonreadiness was ≤3; 42% of the nonready and 90% of the ready children, as defined by the Metropolitan Readiness Test (MTR) score criterion, were correctly identified. An overall hit rate of 75% was obtained on the experimental population. The work indicates that HFD developmental scores are useful for early identification of the academically not-ready kindergarten child.