NCJ Number
183186
Journal
Child Maltreatment Volume: 5 Issue: 2 Dated: May 2000 Pages: 169-175
Editor(s)
Mark Chaffin
Date Published
2000
Length
7 pages
Annotation
Identification and evaluation of child sexual abuse are integral tasks for clinicians, and reliable and valid psychological measures, such as house-tree-person (HTP) projective drawings, aid in these processes.
Abstract
The clinical validity of HTP projective drawings was examined using a sample of 47 sexually abused children and 82 non-abused children in suburban counties of New Jersey. The two samples were matched for gender, ethnicity, age, and socioeconomic status. Protocols were scored using a quantitative scoring system, and data were analyzed using discriminant function analysis. Findings demonstrated that clinicians should exercise caution when using HTP projective drawings to evaluate child sexual abuse. Scales used in the analysis had only fair to poor inter-scorer reliability and were not able to discriminate between the two groups of children. Overall HTP scores did not predict sample membership, which underlies serious reliability and validity limitations in previous empirical studies that concluded HTP projective drawings are an effective clinical tool for evaluating child sexual abuse. 30 references and 4 tables