Who Should Evaluate The Child's Painting? Teacher or Psychologist?

Experts often express their opinion that the pictures made by children in kindergarten and pre-school period should not be perceived as ordinary children's paintings, but should be considered as a message coming from them. The subject of reading the child's picture, which has an important place in the development process of the child and gives clues about the child's psychology and experiences, has started a new discussion. During the face-to-face meetings with preschool administrators and teachers at schools during the research process, this group and even psychologists experience a dilemma about who should evaluate the picture made by the child. Although it is said in the face-to-face interviews and the answers to the questions asked about the subject that this is the duty of psychologists, the greatest responsibility here falls on the teacher rather than the psychologist. Here, the greatest responsibility falls on the teacher rather than the psychologist in the first place. Because while the child is painting in the classroom, only the teacher is at the head of it. The teacher at the head of the child must have developed himself in this regard and have the knowledge and ability to read children's pictures. It is the teacher in the classroom who should see and evaluate the picture made by the child in the first place, and if there is a problem at the next stage, a psychologist is consulted for the official evaluation.If the child has a psychological disorder and there is a possibility that it will turn into trauma, then it would be the best decision for the psychologist to realize the situation and talk to the family and refer the child to a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist. The study was carried out with a total of 36 people, including 6 pre-school administrators, 28 teachers and 2 psychologists in a city, and the art-based research design, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was used as a method.

Keywords

Child, Picture Reading, Teacher, Psychologist, Psychology