Bender Gestalt Recall as a Measure of Short-Term Visual Memory in Children and Adolescents with Psychotic and other Severe Disorders

Abstract

To investigate the short-term visual memory ability of children and adolescents with severe psychiatric disorders, 82 child and adolescent in patients and day hospital patients in a state psychiatric hospital were administered the Bender Gestalt Test as part of a psychological assessment and then asked to reproduce the designs from memory. No significant differences were found between groups on either the Bender Gestalt Recall, or the WISC-III IQs and the Digit Span and Symbol Search subtests for Psychotic Disorders (Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder, Psychosis Not Otherwise Specified), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Mood Disorders or Mood Disorders with co-morbid Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The Coding subtest scores of the Psychotic Disorders group were significantly lower than the ADHD group. Analyses showed that the Bender Gestalt Recall was significantly related to age, Performance IQ, and sex. The results were discussed in terms of both the poor cognitive functioning of children and adolescents with persistent, severe mental illness, and the importance of developmental level when using the Bender Gestalt Recall as a rough measure of short-term visual memory.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bender

Visual-motor Gestalt Test. Baltimore, MD: American Orthopsychiatric Association, 1938.

Finch

Spirito

Garrison

Marshall

Developmental differences in Bender Gestalt recall of children with learning and behavioral problems. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1983, 56, 87–90.

Hutton

Bender recall of children as related to age and intelligence. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1966, 23, 34.

Imm

Foster

Belter

Finch

Assessment of short-term visual memory in child and adolescent psychiatric inpatients. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 1991, 47, 440–443.

Koppitz

The Bender Gestalt Test for young children. Vol. II. Research and application. New York: Crime & Stratton, 1975.

Lyle

Gottesman

Premorbid psychometric indicators of the gene for Huntington's Disease. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1977, 45, 1011–1022.

Nielson

Sapp

Bender Gestalt developmental scores: Predicting reading and mathematics achievement. Psychological Reports, 1991. 69, 39–42.

Olin

Reznikoff

Quantification of the Bender Gestalt: A pilot study. Journal of Projective Techniques, 1957, 21, 265–277.

Reznikoff

Olin

Recall of the Bonder Gestalt designs by organic and schizophrenic patients: A comparative study. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 1957, 13, 183–186.

10.

Rogers

Swenson

Bender Gestalt recall as a measure of memory versus distractibility. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1975, 40, 919–922.

11.

Sohlberg

Personality and neuropsychological performance of high-risk children. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 1985, 11, 48–60.

12.

Swaab-Barneveld

de Sonneville

Cohen-Kettenis

Gielen

Visual sustained attention in a child psychiatric population. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 2000, 39, 651–659.

13.

Tolor

A comparison of the Bender Gestalt test and the Digit Span test as a measure of recall. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 1956, 20, 305–309.

14.

Tolor

Further studies on the Bender Gestalt Test and the Digit Span test as measures of recall. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 1958, 14, 14–18.

15.

Weiss

Reproduction from memory and frequency of recall of Bender Gestalt figures in non-clinical subjects of different ages. Israeli Annals of Psychiatry and Related Disciplines, 1970, 8, 143–145.

16.

Williams

Cognitive neuropsychological studies of children with a schizophrenic disorder. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 1994. 20, 647–669.