Normalizing the Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test for 4 to 7 Years Old Children of Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Objective Bender-Gestalt is one of the well-known neurocognitive tests designed by Lorta Bender to evaluate\rperceptual-motor development level in children. Besides its principle application in evaluation of cerebral\rdamage, Bender test has other important applications, such as evaluating children for entering school, anticipating\reducational progress, diagnosing children with reading and learning disorders, studying growth retardation,\ras well as a nonverbal intelligence test to evaluate children’s reading readiness to enroll in elementary\rschool. Because of the importance of this test in many diagnostics aspects, it is necessary to prepare a normalized\rform of this test. In this study, we tried to provide this form in a more comprehensive and updated form\rcompared to previous studies.\rMaterials & Methods This is a descriptive-analytic research. The study population comprised all preschool\rchildren in Tehran. In this research, we surveyed 523 (271 boys and 252 girls) preschool children in 3 groups\rof 4-5 years old (200 children, 95 boys and 105 girls), 5-6 years old (199 children, 112 boys and 87 girls), and\r6-7 years old (124 children, 64 boys and 60 girls) who were selected by cluster sampling method from some\rpreschools centers in south, north, and center of Tehran during the spring of 2012. The inclusion criteria were\rhaving normal intelligence quotient and being in the range of preschool age. Obtained protocols were numbered\ron the basis of expanded Koppitz scoring system, and finally were analyzed using the Chi-squared test.\rResults Data analysis for 4-5 years old group revealed the result of M(SD) as 14.75(1.82). The most frequent\rerrors belonged to distortion in plans A, 7, and then 8. Also, the least frequent errors belonged to linear drawing\rof plans 3 and 6. With regard to misproportion error in plan A and repetition error in plan 2, girls made\rsignificantly less errors than boys, while with regard to spin errors of plan 7 and misproportion in plan 7, boys\rgot the higher scores. In 5-6 years old group of children, M(SD) was 9.67(4.38). Also, the most frequent errors\rbelonged to distortion in plans 8 and A. Furthermore, the least frequent errors belonged to linear drawing in\rplan 3, distortion in plan 7, and isproportion of components in plan 5. With regard to inappropriate composition\rand linear drawing of plan 5, boys made significant higher errors than girls. For children of 6-7 years old,\rM(SD) was 8.14(4.17). The most common errors in drawing belonged to first distortion errors in plans A and\r8, and then spins in plans 7 and 3, and lastly to misproportion in plan 7. The least frequent errors belonged to\rlinear drawing of plans 5 and 3, spin in plans 8 and 1, and finally distortion in plan 1. Male gender was effective\rin committing errors of wrong composition of plans A and 3, spin in plan 1, figure distortion in plans 6 and 7,\ralso female gender in errors of wrong composition of plan 2, spin in plans 2 and 8.\rConclusion Consistent with Koppit’z maturational hypothesis and previous studies (Iranian and foreign), our\rresults showed visual-motor improvement of perceptual performance with increasing age. In conclusion, koppitz\rscoring system is applicable to Iranian children protocols.