A Comparison of the Verbal Productions of Normal and Behaviorally Disordered Children Using Interview and Color Book Techniques

• Main Author: Muhlestein, Alan L.
• Format: Others
• Published: DigitalCommons@USU 1986
• Subjects: comparison; verbal productions; normal; behaviorally disordered; children; interview; color book; techniques; Psychology
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/5939; https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7007&context=etd

The purpose of this study was to test the usefulness of The Color Book in facilitating interactions between an interviewer and a child. Interviews employing The Color Book were compared with interviews in which no art materials were used. More specifically the question of whether the length of utterances, number of emotional words used and statements about self by the subjects differed between groups using the Color Book and interviews without art materials. Subjects were forty grade school age children attending public schools. Twenty had previously been classified as behaviorally disordered and the other twenty had no such classification. Half of each group was interviewed without art materials. Interviews were conducted by graduate students in Psychology with experience in interviewing techniques. A twenty minute segment of the audiotaped interview was analyzed for the subject's mean length of utterance, number of times an emotion word or phrase was used and the number of times the subject used the words "I", "Me", "My" and "Mine". Two-way analysis of variance failed to detect any significant differences in these variables due the effect of the interviewing conditions.