A drawing of a tree made by elementary school pupils and mentally underdeveloped pupils of the school for mentally retarded children

Abstract

Two groups of pupils were assigned to draw a tree: pupils in the first class of the elementary school, N=37 (21 boys, 16 girls), ranging in age from 6 to 7 and a comparative group of metally underdeveloped pupils (light cases) from the school for mentally retarded children, N=37 (20 boys, 17 girls) whose average age was C = 11 years and 10 months. After analysis it was discovered that the drawings of both groups had several mutal characteristics (elements) so that statistics do not show such a significant difference between them. But it was also established that numerous characteristics exist in the same drawing according to which the groups differ statistically a great amount and which favour the pupils of the first class of the elementary school.