Her thesis was titled:“Oh! I forgot the voice”: A comparative study of
children’s drawings of talking.
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| Hannah's thesis, and the drawing that inspired her title |
Here is the abstract:
Talking and listening are important skills for all children to learn in order to fully participate in society. Since the publication of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (UNICEF, 1989), there has been increased recognition that children’s views should be valued and respected. Previous studies have shown the benefits of utilising child-friendly methods such as drawing to understand aspects of children’s lives. This study aimed to determine whether children with moderate to severe speech sound disorder (SSD) conceptualise talking differently in their drawings to children with typically developing speech. Participants were 78 4- to 5-year-old children (40 males, and 38 females) who were divided into two groups according to their speaking proficiency based on their percentage of consonants correct (PCC) on the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology (DEAP, Dodd, Crosbie, Holm & Ozanne, 2002). Children with typically developing speech achieved a standard score ≥ 7 and children with moderate to severe SSD achieved a standard score of ≤ 3. Children were matched on gender and age (within two months) to provide a comparative sample of 39 pairs of children. Each child was asked questions about their perceptions of their talking, to draw themselves talking to someone, and to describe their drawing. These drawings and accompanying descriptions were analysed using content, descriptive, developmental, and psychological approaches. The children were able to represent talking in their drawings. Findings from the study indicate few statistically significant differences between the drawings of children with SSD and typically developing speech. Significant differences were identified in three of the eleven areas assessed for the children’s drawings: accentuated body features, the colours used and one of the self report measures (KiddyCAT; Vanryckeghem & Brutten, 2006). Children with SSD were more likely to accentuate ears in their drawings, while children with typically developing speech were more likely to accentuate arms/hands. Children with SSD used red, brown, purple and yellow in their drawings more frequently than children with typically developing speech. The KiddyCAT self report measure found that more children with SSD were in the “some difficulty” category than children with typically developing speech. There were no significant differences for any of the other areas considered: number of people in the drawing, conversational partners, facial expressions, portrayal of talking, image of self, Who Am I? Analysis (WAI; de Lemos & Doig, 1999), Adapted Fury Relationship Analysis (AFRA; Holliday 2008) and Faces task (SPAA-C, McLeod 2004). The limited differences between the two groups could relate to children’s self-perception and self insights at that age, and compare with other research suggesting some preschool children do not believe they have difficulties talking, instead they suggest that their conversational partners have difficulty listening (McCormack, McLeod, McAllister & Harrison, 2010). It is recommended that drawings accompanied by children’s verbal descriptions can be used to enhance teachers’ and speech-language pathologists’ understandings of young children’s perceptions of their talking.
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| Hannah with her proud supervisors: Linda Harrison and Sharynne |
