Bender-Gestalt Test: Normalizing the Bender Visual-Motor Test among 5-7 year-old Kurdish Children of Kalar, Iraqi Kurdistan

Background: The standard screening tools can facilitate the complicated diagnosis issue. Among these, standard tests which are cheap, easy to implement, valid, and reliable are often translated into and are used after normalizing. Then this study aimed to normalize the bender visual-motor test among 5-7 year-old kurdish children of kalar, Iraqi Kurdistan.Methods: The present study was descriptive-analytic study. Sampling was conducted in clusters from March to May 2017, and included 141 children (77 females and 64 males). The instrument was Bender-Gestalt Visual-Motor Test. Obtained protocols were numbered on the basis of expanded Koppitz scoring system. Data were analysis by spss22 using descriptive statistics, Chi-Squared Test and one-way ANOVA.Results: Findings of test-retest showed that the reliability coefficient was significant (P<0.05). The highest error (85%) in boys was related to card no.7 and in girls was the same card (89%), as well. The least frequent errors for boys belonged to card 2 and 6. Girls experienced the least amount of difficulties in card 8 with rotation. The differences between 5-6 years old girls and boys were significant in cards 5 and 8. For 6-7 years olds the highest error relates to card A (over 84%). In girls, card 8 was more common (82%). The least error for boys were 1, 2, 5, 6, and 8. Females experienced the least amount of difficulties in cards 5, 6, and 8 (over 3%). Differences between boys and girls was meaningful in cards A, 1, 2, and 5.Conclusion: Despite some differences in error analysis, no significant difference was observed based on gender. So Bender-Gestalt can be safely used for any sex group. The result approved the efficiency of Bender-Gestalt test in this research population.

Keywords:

Normalization , Reliability Coefficient , Bender-Gestalt