Determining the Developmental Level of Artistic Expression in Students with Cerebral Palsy

Abstract

Drawings are a significant determinant of children's maturation and can be considered a reflection of the achieved level of a child's intellectual abilities, but also an indicator of a child's maturity and his or her emotional adaptation. The aim of this study was to determine the developmental level of artistic expression in students with cerebral palsy through the estimation of developmental stage by interpreting human figure drawings, and through defining the characteristics of artistic expression in relation to gender, age, type of school, grade, and upper limbs laterality of students with cerebral palsy. The study was conducted on the sample of 37 elementary school students, of both genders, aged 8-19, and diagnosed with cerebral palsy. The developmental level of artistic expression was determined on the basis of the stages determined as the criteria for human figure drawings. The results show that in the population of students with cerebral palsy the most frequent developmental stage of artistic expression was the Beginning of Conventional Drawings of human figures; that the better achievement with the statistical significance was found in girls when compared to boys (p lt 0.05), among participants from regular school in relation to participants from special school (p lt 0.01), among older participants as compared to participants from junior grades (p lt 0.05), and in participants aged 12-14 when compared to those from the group of 8-11 years of age (p lt 0.05). These findings indicate that children with cerebral palsy go through different developmental stages of artistic expression more slowly than typically developing children, which may be a consequence of primary disability, experiential factors, and specific development of these children.