A Picture Story Test for Use in Physical Disability

The Children's Seashore House Picture Story Test was developed as a tool for investigating psychological effects of physical disability and institutionalization. The test requires S to make up a story about each of the pictures shown to him. Disabled figures are included in the pictures and accessibility of the activities depicted is systematically varied. The test consists of 19 pictures, seven of which were administered to groups of inpatients, former patients, and healthy school children to investigate applicability of the test, to demonstrate its usefulness, to illustrate the kinds of data to be expected from it, and to see whether the stimulus dimension “accessibility” influenced test scores. High interscorer reliability was obtained. Inpatients were found to be similar to the other groups in regard to frequency of themes of success, and different from the controls in references to recognition of disability, sympathy, self pity, need for achievement, and failure or frustration. Differences between the groups varied in a meaningful way with the accessibility of the activity depicted and with characteristics of Ss themselves.