78
LAWRENCE
C.
HARTLAGE
AND DAVID
G.
LUCAS
neurologically impaired.
Diagnostic classifications of the Bender performance
scored with this system were tested for agreement with previous neurological
classifications of
Ss
by the binomial test (Siegel,
1956).
RESULTS
The Bender standard scores that were more than
29
points lower than the
WISC
I&
scores correctly identified
25
of the
30
neurologically impaired children
(p
<
001)
and ruled out neurological impairment in the non-impaired group in
23
of
30
cases
(p
<
001).
DISCUSSION
The use of scaled scores permits
a
more direct comparison between Bender
performance and performance on measures of intellectual ability. Further, the
derived expectancy values on a monthly continuum permit a given individual to
be compared with
a
prorated norm specific to his chronological age. Based on the
accuracy of predictions with the groups represented in the study,
it
appears that the
Bender scaled score also can be
a
useful tool in the armamentarium of the psycho-
diagnostician looking for screening procedures to use with young children.
REFERENCES
HARTLAGE,
L.
C.
Common psychological tests applied to the assessment
of
brain damage.
Journal
KOPPITZ,
E.
M.
The Bender Gestalt Test for young children.
New
York:
Grune
&
Stratton,
1964.
SIEQEL,
S.
Nonparametric statistics.
New
York:
McGraw-Hill,
1956.
SUNDBERG, N.
D.
The practice
of
psychological testing in clinical services in the United States.
of
Projective Techniques and Personality Assessment,
1966,
SO,
319-338.
American Psychologist,
1961,
16,
79-83.
AN ITEM ANALYSIS AND VALIDITY INVESTIGATION
OF
BENDER VISUAL MOTOR GESTALT TEST
SCORE
ITEMS
NADINE
M.
LAMBERT
University of California, Berkeley
There are several scoring systems for the Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test
(BVMGT) (Bender,
1938)
from which the psychologist can choose
if
he wishes to
substitute an objective for an impressionistic appraisal of an examinee’s response.
The number of score items (errors or individual differences in the execution of the
reproductions) in these scoring systems varies from Billinglea’s
(1948)
list of
137
to
Koppits’s
(1966)
list of
30
items. Pascal and Suttell’s
(1951)
system includes
98
items to score
8
of the
9
stimulus figures, and Keller
(1955)
provides
3
scoring
categories with a total of
114
items.
The validity of each of these scoring systems has been established by com-
paring the performance on an individual item by
a
clinical sample of children or
adults with the performance of a normal sample population. In these studies of
the BVMGT, the investigators have analyzed the records of clinical samples such
as
adult psychotics and neurotics, endogenous and exogenous mentally-retarded