Representational development of the human figure in familial retardates.

Representational development of the human figure of normal and familially retarded children was examined. Five tasks were employed: Drawing a Person, Figure Completion, two Form Puzzles, and Drawing on Dictation. Ss included 34 normal children, ages 3-0 to 5-10, and 34 familially retarded children, ages 4-4 to 13-1. The two groups were matched for mental age, socioeconomic status, public school attendance, and intact family structure. Results indicate that familial retardates performed as well as normals and at times surpassed them. Performance on these representational tasks is, predominantly, a function of mental age which lends support to a "developmental" theory of familial retardation and refutes the "defect" hypothesis.