ABSTRACT
Examining the Rorschachs of very young children, Leichtman (1996) made a tremendously important point. He suggested that their responses “differ in kind from normal Rorschach responses and they lead to doubts that the same modes of thinking underlie their formulation” (p. 19). He goes on to suggest that young children progress through a series of stages on their way, around age seven, to producing Rorschachs that can be interpreted in a “standard” manner. As he put it, “mastery of the test occurs over a considerable period of time-the preschool 139
years and beyond-and is reflected in a series of increasingly sophisticated, qualitatively different patterns of test performance” (p. 35).Leichtman (1996) suggests that young children pass through three basic stages and two transitional periods between these stages on their way to giving “standard” Rorschachs. He calls the first stage, at around age two, Pervasive Perseveration. During this period, the youngster tends to give the same answer to each of the cards. At around two and a half, during a transitional period Leichtman calls Modified Perseverations, the predominant pattern continues to be a perseverative one, but the youngster may give unique responses to a few of the cards.Children progress to the second stage, Confabulatory Approaches, around age three. Although some perseverations continue in this stage, it is no longer the predominant way of working through the test. Klopfer, Spiegelman, and Fox (1956) described the confabulatory aspects of this stage, noting that “frequently, the child may choose any of his favorite animals, point out one of its properties . . . and gleefully assign the rest of the blot material to the same concept” (pp. 27-28). Although the youngster’s own psychology, as opposed to the stimulus properties of the blot, is still the primary determinant of his or her responses, we can begin to see a shift in the balance, with the external properties of the blot making at least some contribution to the response.According to Leichtman (1996), between ages four and a half and six, the child moves into a transitional stage, Confabulatory Combinations. This involves a broadening of confabulatory answers in which two details are used to produce an answer that still does not bear much resemblance to the rest of the blot. As Klopfer et al. (1956) expressed, “The concept formation falls short in the way in which the specified elements are organized within a total concept” (p. 28). These confabulatory combinations happen in about half the answers a five-year-old may give, and the other half are likely to be answers that come entirely from the stimulus properties of the blot itself. Again, this pattern represents an increasing shift toward the use of the blot to produce responses.Leichtman (1996) suggests that as youngsters approach age seven and the third and final stage of his sequence, they become “able to give a varied number of responses to the inkblots, identify their location precisely, and answer questions in ways that permit them to be scored with a reasonable degree of assurance” (p. 61). Children are now responding to the Rorschach with the balance of internal and external input that allows the use of normative data and standard interpretive approaches.Leichtman’s (1995) developmental sequence has important clinical implications. As Klopfer et al. (1956) put it, “If a seven-year-old child still gives responses based on any of the three steps of perseveration, confabulation, and confabulatory combination, we may assume that he functions below his age level” (p. 28). Ames, Learned, Metraux, and Walker (1952) noted that confabulations are typical during ages four through seven, but “their occurrence after these ages at least suggests immaturity if not the pathology which they would imply at later stages” (p. 283).
