Centration: A Perceptual Process Diacritic of Intellection and a Differential Diagnostic Criterion

This was a pilot study to determine whether centrarion, as a perceptual process, could be a criterion for differentiating between neurologically impaired and emotionally disturbed children. Centration was defined by Piaget as a prolonged involuntary attachment of a sensory modality to one part of a visual field that, in turn, affects motor behavior, producing effects on drawing tasks by a separation of designs or their parts coincident with distortions. The neurologically impaired children were seen as having basic difficulties with perception whereas the emotionally disturbed children would have basic difficulties in intellection. Therefore, the centration-distortion error would characterize drawings of the neurologically impaired but not of the emotionally disturbed children. A sample of 12 for each group was selected, with EEG records, psychological tests and psychiatric interviews being used as defining criteria. The hypothesis was upheld for each child in the neurologically impaired group making at least three out of a possible four errors. Only one child in the emotionally disturbed group made a centration-distortion error.