Rawley Silver – författare

Art can be an invaluable means of communication. It can bypass language and impairment and allow for the expression of thoughts or feelings too difficult to communicate with words. In The Silver Drawing Test and Draw a Story, Rawley Silver draws on her years of experience using therapeutic art with hearing-impaired children, stroke patients, and others with learning disabilities or emotional disturbances. The book’s original art assessments use stimulus drawings to elicit responses that provide access to a patient’s emotions and attitudes toward themselves and others, while also testing for the ability to solve problems and convey ideas. Offering tools to assess cognitive skills that often escape detection on verbal tests of intelligence or achievement, the book helps in identifying those at risk for violent behavior or masked depression. Thoroughly updated from Silver’s earlier works, this new book includes techniques to assess aggression and depression that may lead to violence in schools and suicide among children and adolescents. It also addresses important gender and age differences, incorporating new information and updated studies, and it offers an in-depth look at the developmental procedures involved in these art assessments. As education for mental health professionals now includes art therapy more regularly, Silver has provided an invaluable resource for assessing emotional and cognitive content.

Art can be an invaluable means of communication. It can bypass language and impairment and allow for the expression of thoughts or feelings too difficult to communicate with words. In The Silver Drawing Test and Draw a Story, Rawley Silver draws on her years of experience using therapeutic art with hearing-impaired children, stroke patients, and others with learning disabilities or emotional disturbances. The book’s original art assessments use stimulus drawings to elicit responses that provide access to a patient’s emotions and attitudes toward themselves and others, while also testing for the ability to solve problems and convey ideas. Offering tools to assess cognitive skills that often escape detection on verbal tests of intelligence or achievement, the book helps in identifying those at risk for violent behavior or masked depression. Thoroughly updated from Silver’s earlier works, this new book includes techniques to assess aggression and depression that may lead to violence in schools and suicide among children and adolescents. It also addresses important gender and age differences, incorporating new information and updated studies, and it offers an in-depth look at the developmental procedures involved in these art assessments. As education for mental health professionals now includes art therapy more regularly, Silver has provided an invaluable resource for assessing emotional and cognitive content.

A study of more than two hundred children using Rawley Silver''s draw a story test showed a strong correlation between aggression or depression and certain types of artistic narratives; meanwhile, unbeknownst to Silver, a pair of Russian therapists were using Silver''s assessment tests in a similar fashion with Russian children and achieving similar results.

Aggression and Depression Assessed Through Art: Using Draw-A-Story to Identify Children and Adolescents at Risk came about as a result of these studies, but the book''s scope goes beyond the numbers to investigate the connections between a child''s expression through drawing and his violent behavior. The text, written mostly by Silver but with chapters contributed by therapists from both the United States and Russia, compares drawings by children who have already exhibited violent behavior with those who have not, thus exploring the potential of the test for use as an early identifier of children and adolescents at risk for depression or inappropriate aggression. Other chapters examine the changes in emotional state revealed by a child''s responses to standard art assessment tests, as well as the cross-cultural applications of Silver''s tests. Silver is recognized as one of the earliest developers of art therapy in the United States, and by providing mental health professionals with a tool to help identify and treat disturbed children this book represents yet another of her major contributions to the field.

A study of more than two hundred children using Rawley Silver''s draw a story test showed a strong correlation between aggression or depression and certain types of artistic narratives; meanwhile, unbeknownst to Silver, a pair of Russian therapists were using Silver''s assessment tests in a similar fashion with Russian children and achieving similar results.

Aggression and Depression Assessed Through Art: Using Draw-A-Story to Identify Children and Adolescents at Risk came about as a result of these studies, but the book''s scope goes beyond the numbers to investigate the connections between a child''s expression through drawing and his violent behavior. The text, written mostly by Silver but with chapters contributed by therapists from both the United States and Russia, compares drawings by children who have already exhibited violent behavior with those who have not, thus exploring the potential of the test for use as an early identifier of children and adolescents at risk for depression or inappropriate aggression. Other chapters examine the changes in emotional state revealed by a child''s responses to standard art assessment tests, as well as the cross-cultural applications of Silver''s tests. Silver is recognized as one of the earliest developers of art therapy in the United States, and by providing mental health professionals with a tool to help identify and treat disturbed children this book represents yet another of her major contributions to the field.