Developing an Evaluation Grid for the “Drawn Stories Technique”: Exploring the Indicators of Children’s Socio-Emotional Development, Anxiety, and Depression Levels

Since the first development of psychology, drawing has been considered a useful tool to understand an individual's development and personality. The graphic method has been regarded as a valuable means of expressing not only personality traits but also a child's emotions and the emotional tone they "invest" in the surrounding environment. However, empirical evaluations have raised substantial doubts about the reliability and validity of this kind of technique, and the lack of studies that provide empirical scoring methods represents a significant limitation in the field. This study aims to develop a tailored evaluation grid for the Drawn Stories Technique to explore which drawing indicators-story outcomes, themes, content, and formal aspects might reflect children's socio-emotional functioning in terms of emotional and social intelligence, as well as clinical levels of anxiety and depression. The Drawn Stories Technique along with four self-report questionnaires assessing trait Emotional Intelligence, Social Intelligence, Anxiety, and Depression, were administered to 228 primary school children in groups during class time. Negative outcomes were positively related to depression scores but not to anxiety scores, while social skills were associated with fewer death-related themes. Children that exhibited clinical levels of depression tended to draw significantly fewer themes related to fables and animals, and more everyday life events. Conversely, children with clinical levels of anxiety showed differences in some formal aspects in their drawings, including fewer empty spaces and more heavy line traits. This study has shown the potential use of graphic techniques with primary school children to obtain potential indicators of maladjustment through an evaluation grid to collect information.