Some observations concerning modifications in the presentation of the body schema in drawings by children with language and laterality disorders

Clinical communication presented by Madame Joanny (Nancy Centre) at the 2nd International Congress of Audio-Psycho-Phonology held in Paris from 11 to 14 May 1972. Mme Joanny, who presents herself not as a theoretician but as a re-educator, contradicts from the outset the title given in the programme: what she proposes to illustrate concerns not the body schema as such — which would deserve a whole paper on its own — but rather the presentation children give of it through their drawings. After a recall of the general principles of interpretation (use of pictorial space, graphism, matter and symbolism of colours), she comments on seven cases drawn from her re-educational practice under Electronic Ear. The material is striking: a dyslexic boy who first draws a figure without a mouth; a little girl rendered vocally aphasic after a tonsillectomy; a child of an affluent bourgeois background reined in by parental interdicts; a sibling pair with confused lateralities; and an écorché “horrible to behold” who, at the end of re-education, becomes a martial-looking figure stepping forward “to the right, towards the future”. The iconography — fourteen plates in appendix — is reproduced here in black and white, as the editors of the Proceedings note that they were unable to restore the colours of the originals.

Some observations concerning modifications in the presentation of the body schema in drawings by children with language and laterality disorders

by Madame Joanny — Nancy Centre

Communication presented on Sunday 14 May 1972 at the 2nd International Congress of Audio-Psycho-Phonology (Paris, 11-14 May 1972).

Speaker’s notice

I should like first of all to say that I feel a little embarrassed to take the floor after such eminent people who know much more than I do about the subject I propose to treat.

I think nonetheless that it may usefully illustrate certain hypotheses and observations that have been made here during the three very interesting days we have just lived through together.

I do not intend to give a learned paper. I am not a theoretician — but I have a re-educational experience that has led me to make a number of observations that seemed to me interesting to communicate to you through a series of drawings that punctuate the re-educations I have carried out.

In this regard, I must say that I am no longer entirely in agreement with the title given, without much reflection, to this communication: a word should be added to it, the title thus becoming:

“Some observations concerning modifications in the presentation of the body schema in drawings by children with language and laterality disorders.”

The body schema — a few definitions

We spoke briefly just now of the body schema; we shall not return to this subject, which would be far too long to treat, but we must all the same agree on a few definitions.

The body schema — you all know what it is: one may define it as the consciousness of one’s own body, of bodily movements, of postures, of gestures, etc. — which is constituted slowly, according to the maturation of the nervous system. The definition is not mine but seems excellent to me.

Indeed, the baby at birth is hardly differentiated from his mother; it is only gradually that the small child will operate this differentiation, become conscious of himself and of what he is. The acquisition of this body image presupposes that other notions are installed at the same time, such as those of space and time which permit it, but also that of being conscious of one’s own body, and also of situating things in relation to oneself: what is in front of him, behind his back, what is up, down, right, left, what is to the right in relation to another thing, and so on. It is an orientation in space, to which is added, but a little later, the orientation in time — that is, how to situate the present, what is anterior to the present, namely the past, and what will come after and constitute the future.

To these three factors — consciousness of his body schema, notions of space and time, helping the child to inhabit ever more intimately his lived space — it would be fitting to add another, which would be in some sense the affective value; for the child it is a matter of establishing sure and stable affective benchmarks that lend an appeal and stability to his relations with the universe of his fantasies. These benchmarks will be situated, for example, at the level of what is permitted, forbidden, obligatory, and so on, as well as the permanence in the distribution of the roles of the father, the mother and the various persons gravitating around him.

The three ways of projecting the body schema in drawing

When one considers children’s drawings, one realises that they are an authentic projection of the personal — conscious but also unconscious — universe of the child. As in dream, there is a manifest content, which is anecdotal and in relation to a story the child wishes to tell, but there is also a latent content, which is most often symbolic. Through these projections, the subject will deliver a certain image of himself; this image may be of three orders:

Either one can make an image of him as he really feels himself, which is precisely the projection of his body schema.
Or one can make an image that will be in relation to what he would like to be — a kind of operative projection of the ideal image.
Or he may project what he refuses, what he repudiates, what hampers him — which we shall see moreover in a moment through the drawings I am going to show you.

General principles of interpretation of drawings

When one considers children’s drawings, a few general principles of interpretation must be kept in mind concerning the use of pictorial space, the analysis of the graphic gesture and the signification of colours.

The use of pictorial space

One considers the density of the filled space — that is, the size of the drawing in the sheet. Is it tiny and quite lost, or does it on the contrary occupy a large place, all the place? Is it well centred, well balanced; does it give an impression of harmony, of rhythm?

One may consider the drawing in terms of a spatio-temporal symbolism. I take the cross as a fundamental structure, a universal archetype. It is in relation to this structure that a drawing can be analysed, divided into several parts according to its cruciform axes: there is up, down, above the cross — it is in some sense a celestial, spiritual series; the lower part of the cross represents earthly space; the transverse part of the cross is the vegetal level, the rounding into a sphere of the nourishing earth. This spatio-temporal symbolism rejoins a fundamental analytic perspective in which there is also an anciently lived component, which one finds in many evoked plastic representations (tree, candle, ship’s mast, flag, etc.); a descending component symbolising vegetative elements and evoking orality, the earth, the hearth from which the child tears himself away; and finally the vertical components, which embody relations with others. One finds this same cruciform concept in graphology, where one considers the upper parts of letters, the transverse parts and the descenders.

The graphism

The graphism concerns the character of the line, the pressure, the lightness or, on the contrary, the way it is accentuated, pasty, hatched, and so on. The values of the tones, depending on whether they are with pencil, the characters, the excessive and generalised nuancings, are often in relation to greed or aggressiveness.

Colour — material used

Colour depends in the first place on the material used: coloured pencils, Crayolor, paint, felt-tips.

One must consider both the choice of tones and the way they are manipulated: well-blended tones, intensity or paleness through excessive thinning, washing, gradation.

Coloured pencils and paint allow a very great variety of tones, and one takes account of the fact that they can be superimposed, mixed. Here one finds the theories concerning the symbolism of colours. However, the ever more frequent use of felt-tips has considerably modified the appearance of drawings; for with felt-tips, the tones are always vivid and without nuance. In that respect they please children a great deal; they are moreover easy to handle, but they somewhat betray the projection of the child’s inner world.

Presentation of the cases — method

In children’s drawings, certain symbolic themes are privileged. They inform us in the first place on the representation of the child’s body schema and also on his personality and his deep neuroses.

The most current are the figure with its substitutes: the house, the tree, the boat (for it often happens that, given the whiteness of a sheet of paper, the child never draws a figure unless expressly invited to). For a very long time it may be a house, a tree, a boat or another theme.

After this long preamble, my aim is to show you how these themes are inscribed in communication disorders. For it is indeed of the application to this communication that it is a matter, through language and laterality disorders. With the help of a few drawings, and in a very rapid shortcut — because we are pressed for time — I shall show you the evolution of these representations and these projective themes, in particular figure and house, between the starting point of a re-education, where the child arrives all bound up in his problems, and his end point.

I should specify that the re-educations I do use the Electronic Ear in association with other re-educational methods of my choice, but I consider that, parallel to the changes — very rapid — in the way the child projects himself through his drawings, they are due to this kind of opening, to this taking possession by the child of his own body that the Electronic Ear favours.

And now, something serious: the child’s inner universe is modified, and this modification is projected in his drawings. These are always free drawings. I never of course commanded him to make a figure or a house. He is left to himself; he will not learn, otherwise it would have no value as a test.

Here now are some of these drawings, which for practical reasons are placed at the end of the communication.

A — Language and communication disorders

We shall first interest ourselves in language and communication disorders. In the most remarkable cases, the children presenting such disorders show their problem in the representation of the mouth: either it is non-existent, “passed over in silence”, or on the contrary it is very blackened, enlarged, sometimes even monumental, or barred.

Drawing No. I — Rodolphe (A and B)

This is a child of 6 ½, of normal intelligence, sharp and lively, belonging to an excellent family milieu. Rodolphe presents at the same time disorders of read and written language. He is a regular dyslexic. I show you here his first figure (drawing A). He has no mouth.

[Drawing No. I-A — Rodolphe, Sept. 71]

The child had a very good re-education, at the rate of only twice a week, because he lived far from Nancy. And here now is the drawing of the figure at the end of re-education (drawing B). One has the impression that he has grown in an extraordinary way; he is now well established, he has a body, a very detailed costume and a smiling mouth. The drawing is coloured, whereas the previous ones were not (although the child had always had the same coloured pencils at his disposal).

[Drawing No. I-B — Rodolphe, 8 March 1972]

There is a gap of four months between the two drawings, and we incontestably witness a taking-conscience by the child of his own body, which is quite remarkable.

Drawing No. II — Lysiane (A and B)

I said just now that the mouth-problem is sometimes enormous, monumental. Here is an example.

It is a little girl, Lysiane, who became vocally aphasic following a tonsillectomy that took place when the child was 4; she still spoke. According to the parents, the anaesthesia would have been insufficient; their daughter would have felt great fear in the operating room, increased by the operative pain, and the impossibility of speaking would have manifested itself in the days following the intervention.

Lysiane arrived with me very perturbed, devoured by instability, with enuresis and unable to attend school. The treatment under Electronic Ear did not allow the recovery of speech but had a remarkable result on the behavioural plane: the child became well-behaved and kind, very cooperative; the enuresis disappeared; we were able to put Lysiane in class and subsequently to place her in a boarding school for deaf-mutes, which was probably not the best solution, since she seemed to understand very well what was said to her.

Her first drawing (drawing A) is significant: it indicates major disorders of the personality. The body schema of this figure is very anxiety-provoking: in this face one may consider there to be two small eyes, a small nose, and that all the rest is an enormous mouth at once open and closed by this brown scribbling — a mouth of anguish that will not or can no longer speak.

[Drawing No. II-A — Lysiane]

One finds this same mouth-problem in the drawing of the house (drawing B) you see here. It is a polymorphous house with eyes, a nose, a brown scribbled and barred mouth; it is also a house of anguish and of the earth. The vertical strokes at the bottom are perhaps paths. It is quite curious as a house, and there would be much to say about this drawing.

[Drawing No. II-B — Lysiane]

Later, the child’s houses and figures evolved but remained marked by anguish: the mouth was always widely open and blackened by intense colouring.

I met Lysiane’s mother eight days ago. The child is now 14, can read and write and her development appears noticeably normal. That is certainly due to her psycho-pedagogical boarding school. She has never recovered speech.

Drawing No. III — Nicolas (A, B and C)

Here are a few drawings of a child who came to me for language delay and blockage of all his evolution. He was named Nicolas, aged 8.

The child’s family belonged to the well-to-do provincial bourgeoisie. He was a pampered child, dressed like a little prince with white socks, white gloves, and so on. He was of course forbidden to crawl on the ground, to play in the earth, to get dirty, and so on. His father, a doctor, was very busy; his mother appeared full of maternal feelings but seemed overwhelmed, and the child was subjected to obligations of all kinds, giving him little real tenderness; the grandmother took him to the palaces of Nice, Cannes and other select places, while striving to polish his education.

The simplest sentences were never entirely simple. Thus, when he wanted to urinate, Nicolas said: “I want to do my toilet”; and when he wanted to play outside: “I am going out”. This was not a way in which the grandmother would say to the child: “You will go and isolate yourself”. The child, who did not understand, tried to ask what to take off, and on the day I tried to have him pronounce the word “crotte” — a tragic and taboo word until then — it was a beginning of freeing himself. So, all these interdicts — “playing with earth or water”, facilitating his “incitations”, “dressing in overalls”, “staying dirty” — without having for that these compulsions of going to wash. A being in his presence the appearance of these results, and that helped much in his resistance to a very rapid evolution that we have seen appear in the drawings of figures, which we are going to see more or less elaborated.

Here is his first figure, without a mouth or very perfunctorily (drawing A), which would rather be a woman, judging from its triangular components.

[Drawing No. III-A — Nicolas]

Here is another (drawing B) made later, in which the child has known how to make the distinction of the sexes: man and woman are differentiated by costume — which is already an inherent change at the level of the body schema.

[Drawing No. III-B — Nicolas]

In the course of the drawings, we witness transformations of the figure, who grows little by little until reaching this marvellous cowboy (drawing C), very aggressive moreover but with a healthy aggressiveness. You see his head, his sexual attributes represented by the fly, his pistol, his very complete feet well planted on the ground. What a difference from the first figure at the start of re-education!

[Drawing No. III-C — Nicolas]

B — Major laterality disorders

Here now are other drawings, those of children presenting major laterality disorders. These children do not manage to choose between left and right.

Drawing No. IV — Jean-Paul

Jean-Paul, 10 years old, a major dyslexic, made two very amusing drawings at the start of re-education: on the first page (drawing not reproduced), it is absolute hesitation; he begins two figures, one above which looks to the left, but he crosses it out — it will not do; the other looks straight ahead and scratches his head, but that will not do either, and he crosses that one out too. He then turns his page and makes this charming wounded cowboy with a crutch under each arm.

[Drawing No. IV — Jean-Paul]

When one observes his feet, one realises that his left foot is covered in bandages and that the right foot is crossed out. In the tree trunk there seems to be an inverted head, and the bar sign is all askew! In short, everything is somewhat topsy-turvy in this drawing.

Drawing No. V — François (A and B)

Jean-Paul’s brother, François, aged 6, presented the same laterality disorders and dyslexia. At the start of re-education, he draws with much difficulty this Lilliputian and asymmetrical figure (drawing A). The left leg is shorter and the left arm appears to have two hands.

[Drawing No. V-A — François]

The re-education went very well. Manual laterality settled to the right. François was able to learn to read and write very satisfactorily, and the scholastic blockage was resolved.

At the end of re-education, the figure drawn by François (drawing B) shows a considerable evolution of the body schema. There is still imbalance between right and left, but the enlargement and the assurance are considerable.

[Drawing No. V-B — François]

The same evolution is observed for the tree drawings (not reproduced here).

Drawing No. VI — Robert (A and B)

We have here two very amusing drawings of a child of 10, a good dyslexic-dysorthographic, very poorly lateralised.

His first figure (drawing A) made at the start of re-education has arms attached to the waist and hands reversed, judging from the position of the thumbs.

[Drawing No. VI-A — Robert]

At the end of re-education — that is, about 4 months later — we obtain a drawing (drawing B) which, by its scope and general expression, gives an impression of pleasant euphoria. The arms have moved from the waist to a more or less normal position. As for the hands, they are now the right way round; the thumbs are no longer “reversed”. One may therefore suppose that the hands no longer pose a problem for him and that things are in order, which proved to be true on the scholastic plane.

[Drawing No. VI-B — Robert]

Drawing No. VII — Hervé (A and B)

The last two drawings I am going to show you are even more symptomatic. You have here (drawing A) a poor écorché, horrible to behold, which makes one think that the child who drew it has personality disorders. He was, in fact, a child of normal intelligence, of cultivated social background, with major scholastic difficulties. Perhaps he is still at Mr Zimmermann’s, to whom I had sent him when the parents moved to Lyon?

[Drawing No. VII-A — Hervé, May 1965]

Mr Zimmermann.

Yes, he is leaving us at the end of this year; he is going into the first form.

Mme Joanny.

After a first stage of re-education that went very well, here is the marvellous figure (drawing B) Hervé drew. Admire his martial and resolute air. He walks with assured step to the right, towards the future.

[Drawing No. VII-B — Hervé, 22 June 1966]

Editors’ note (Proceedings)

It was unfortunately impossible for us to reproduce in full, for technical reasons, the whole set of documents transmitted to us by Mme Joanny. We apologise to her.

The drawings relating to the commentaries we have retained (7 cases out of 10) and published below could not be reproduced in colour, but only in black and white.

The original iconographic appendix comprises fourteen plates — two drawings per case (with the exception of Nicolas, three drawings, and Jean-Paul, only one) — dated from September 1971 to March 1972 for Rodolphe, May 1965 and June 1966 for Hervé, etc. The originals are kept with the proceedings of the congress.

Source: Joanny (Mme), “Quelques observations concernant les modifications de la présentation du schéma corporel dans les dessins d’enfants présentant des troubles du langage et de la latéralité”, in Actes du II^e Congrès International d’Audio-Psycho-Phonologie, Paris, 11-14 May 1972, pp. 206-228 (text pp. 206-214 + 14 plates in appendix pp. 215-228). Communication presented on Sunday 14 May 1972. Document digitised from the personal archives of Alfred Tomatis.