Graphology for the diagnosis of suicide attempts: a blind proof of principle controlled study

Handwriting in children with Attention Deficient Hyperactive Disorder: role of graphology

Background

Handwriting difficulties are common in children with attention deficient hyperactive disorder (ADHD). The aim of our study was to find distinctive characteristics of handwriting in children with ADHD by using graphology to analyze physical characteristics and patterns, and to evaluate whether graphological analysis is an effective ADHD diagnostic tool for clinicians.

Method

The cohort included 49 children aged 13–18 years attending a tertiary neurology and epilepsy center in 2016–2017; 22 had a previous DSM-IV/V diagnosis of ADHD. The children were asked to write a 10–12-line story in Hebrew on a blank sheet of paper with a blue pen over a 20-min period. The samples were analyzed by a licensed graphologist blinded to the clinical details of the children against a predetermined handwriting profile of individuals with ADHD. Each ADHD characteristic identified in each sample was accorded 1 point, up to a total of 15 points. Patients with a graphology score of 9–15 were considered to have ADHD.

Results

There were 21 boys (43%) and 28 girls (57%) in the cohort; 15 boys (71.4%) and 7 girls (25%) had a DSM-IV/V diagnosis of ADHD. The mean graphology score was significantly higher in the children who had a DSM-IV/V diagnosis of ADHD than in the children who did not (9.61 + 3.49 vs. 5.79 + 4.01, p = 0.002, respectfully). Using a score of 9 as the cutoff, in the girls, graphology had a specificity of 80% (95% CI 59.2–92.8) and a of sensitivity 71.4% for predicting ADHD. Corresponding values in the boys were 75.0 and 76.2%.

Conclusion

The handwriting of children with ADHD has specific characteristics. Graphology may serve as a clinically useful tool in the diagnosis of ADHD.

Is Graphology Useful in Assessing Major Depression?

This study aimed to develop a handwriting analysis protocol for assessing severe major depressive disorder, in order to evaluate whether graphological analysis could be considered an objective tool and hence if it could be useful for clinicians in their early diagnosis. We modified and improved the methodology described by Lorusso et al. by proposing different graphic indexes based both on the literature and on the observation of a preliminary sample of 13 handwritings of patients affected by major depressive disorder. Then, we recruited 80 participants, divided into two groups: clinical sample ( n = 44) and control group ( n = 36). We used Cohen's Kappa to evaluate the reliability of agreement among four professional graphologists and the consensus between the psychiatric assessment and the ratings given by the judges. We found satisfactory results. Using our protocol, we obtained higher values for Cohen's Kappa as compared with Lorusso et al. The agreement among graphologists is K = .62, while the K values for the agreement between psychiatric assessment and graphologists range between .47 and .60. The substantial improvements obtained in comparison with Lorusso et al. are encouraging and support further attempts.