A maturation measure, borrowed from perception research
Wertheimer published his figures in 1923 in Psychologische Forschung to show how people group dots, lines and curves into wholes. Bender's twist was to have them drawn rather than just looked at. How a person copies a form shows how they perceive it, and in children that changes with age.
She described it as “a method of evaluating maturation of gestalt functioning” in children aged 4 to 11.
The same copy, read four ways
Bender's own scoring was a guide rather than a finished system, so others built their own. Pick a reading to see who used it and what they were looking for.
From a monograph to Army classrooms to every school psychologist's kit
Among the most-used psychological tests, especially with school psychologists, until training in it declined. In 1995 Piotrowski still called it “an integral part of the standard test battery” for fifty years.
In Norcross, Koocher and Garofalo's expert poll, the Bender for assessing neuropsychological impairment scored 4.0 or higher, alongside the Lüscher Color Test, the Szondi Test and graphology. The verdict covered that use specifically, not visual-motor screening in general.
After the rights passed to Riverside Publishing in the 1990s, Gary Brannigan and Scott Decker added seven figures to the nine. They also chose a Global Scoring System, loosely related to Bender's own, on reliability, validity and ease of use.
Sources cited on this page
- [1]Bender, L. (1938). A Visual Motor Gestalt Test and Its Clinical Use. American Orthopsychiatric Association Research Monographs, No. 3. New York.review notice, Psychoanalytic Quarterly (1940)Used for: Title, series, 176 pages.
- [2]Wikipedia. Bender-Gestalt Test (citing Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine; Piotrowski 2016; Norcross et al. 2006).en.wikipedia.orgUsed for: Procedure, Bender's quote, Hutt history, Koppitz, Bender-II, popularity.
- [3]Piotrowski, C. (1995). A review of the clinical and research use of the Bender-Gestalt Test. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 81, 1272–1274.doiUsed for: “Integral part of the standard battery” and critique.
- [4]Brannigan, G. G. (2010). Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test. Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology. Wiley; and citing literature.researchgate.netUsed for: Over 20 scoring systems 1948–2002; Bender's own system as a guide.
- [5]Pascal, G. R., & Suttell, B. J. (1951). The Bender-Gestalt Test. Grune & Stratton.cited in BranniganUsed for: 1951 objective scoring.
- [6]Peek, R. M., & Quast, W. (1951). A Scoring System for the Bender-Gestalt Test. Minneapolis.cited in Bernstein (1963)Used for: 1951 scoring system.
- [7]Norcross, J. C., Koocher, G. P., & Garofalo, A. (2006). Discredited psychological treatments and tests: A Delphi poll.doiUsed for: Discredited rating for neuropsychological use.
- [8]Brannigan, G. G., & Decker, S. L. (2003). Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test, 2nd ed. Riverside Publishing.via [2]Used for: Bender-II.
- [9]Wertheimer, M. (1923). Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt II. Psychologische Forschung, 4.cited in Patel (1972)Used for: Source of the figures.
What changed in this revision
The 1938 monograph was not read; it is known from review notices and the reference literature. The Hutt history comes from a Wikipedia account that cites no primary document for the mimeographed 1945 guide.
- CORRECTEDBender-Gestalt II was published by Riverside Publishing (2003), not Pearson; it has 16 figures.
- REMOVEDThe use list (intellectual disability, learning disability, school readiness) presented as Bender's aims. The uses are now attributed to the scoring traditions that pursued them.
- ADDEDMonograph hero, Bender's purpose and procedure, four scoring readings, a Hutt-to-Koppitz-2 timeline, the popularity vs 2006 Delphi verdict, and 9 references.
- FLAGGEDThe Hutt account (classes at Brooke Army Hospital, the 1945 guide) rests on one secondary source.
- KEPTThe copy-it canvas and self-check, relabelled as generic error kinds.
Related historical tests
Rey used a single elaborate figure, copied and then drawn from memory, where Bender used nine simple ones. Both judge perception and planning by how a drawing is built.
Goodenough scored a child's free drawing of a person for detail as a measure of maturity. Bender asked for copies instead. Both treat a pencil drawing as a window on development.
Hutt's personality reading of the Bender borrowed the projective logic of the TAT: ambiguity invites self-revelation. The two faced the same validity critiques.
Kohs asked people to build designs with blocks, Bender to draw them. The two remain the classic routes to visual-constructional ability.
Researchers later used the Halstead-Reitan battery as the criterion for checking the Bender's sensitivity to cortical dysfunction. The comparison is part of why its brain-damage use fell from favour.
Wechsler's scale came out of Bellevue in New York a year after Bender's monograph. Clinical batteries of the 1940s often paired the two.