The Influence of Musical Stimuli Upon Retarded Children's Crayon Drawings

Abstract: The purpose was to determine whether musical stimuli would influence retarded children's crayon drawings. The specific problem was to investigate whether tonal and atonal (electronic) music would influence the moods and thereby the drawing behaviors of mentally retarded children. Fifteen males at Adaptive Behavior Level I and fifteen at Level III were selected at random from the polulation at Parsons State Hospital and Training Center. Their ages ranged from 14 to 19 years. The subjects came individually to one session. Each subject was instructed to "draw a picture of anything that you would like to draw". One picture was drawn during the absence of music, one during a tonal composition, and another during an atonal (electronic) composition. The criteria utilized by three experts in evaluting the drawings consisted of color shading, length and shape of lines, form symbolization, design, dimension, emphasis area, picture content, and thematic content. The data indicated no significant differences between Levels I and III with regard to all criteria except length of lines and dimension. In regard to the specific problem of the study, no significant differences were found within Levels I and III.

Keyword(s): musical-stimulus, developmental-disabilities, retarded, children, tonal, music, drawing, atonal-music.

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