Bender-Gestalt performance of Puerto Rican, white, and Negro children

Abstract

The Bender-Gestalt performance of 74 non-middle-class white and 47 non-middle-class Negro children was investigated in the first and third grades. The developmental lag found in the non-white children supported previous research findings that were generalized to include Puerto Rican children. The Bender was found to be a valid measure of developmental differences for the non-white groups, as already had been established for white populations. Although the Puerto Rican group caught up with the white group by the end of the third grade, the Negro group did not. The data suggested that the Koppitz norms may be too high in the middle range and not accurate when differences between scores are small.