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Lauretta Bender, M.D.

Test Developed:
The Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test

Born on August 9, 1897, to John Oscar The Visual Motor Gestalt Test (Bender,
Bender, an attorney, and Katherine 1938) evolved as a method of evaluating
Irvine Bender, Lauretta was the maturation of visual motor gestalt
youngest of four children. Lauretta functioning in children 4 to 11 years of
repeated first grade three times and was age. The gestalt function is that function
thought to be mentally retarded, in large of the integrated organism or brain
part because of her tendency to reverse whereby it responds to a given
letters in reading and writing. However, constellation of stimuli as a whole, the
by the time she completed grammar response itself being a motor process of
school, any concerns about mental patterning the perceived gestalt.
retardation were quelled, since she had
proved herself an able student. The aim of the test is to get not a perfect
reproduction of the test figures but a
The family moved often. Lauretta record of a perceptual motor experience
attended high school in Los Angeles, "a living experience, unique and
where she cultivated an interest in never twice the same, even with the
biological research. She earned her B.S. same individual, as a result of a known
and M.A. degrees at the University of stimuli constellation.
Chicago and while there pursued
research that led to her first scientific Certain principles determine the
publications"hematological studies on maturation of visual motor perception in
experimental tuberculosis of the guinea children: (1) Vortical movement,
pig. Accepted at the State University of biologically determined in the optic
Iowa Medical School, she was granted a field, gives rise to the most primitive
research and teaching assistantship and visually perceived forms, such as circles
assigned to Dr. Samuel Orton in the and loops. (2) Movement, always
department of neuropathology. In 1926 present, is directional"clockwise or
she earned her M.D. degree. This was counterclockwise"or on a horizontal
followed by some study overseas, an plane"dextrad or sinistrad. (3) By
internship at the University of Chicago, controlling or inhibiting this action-
a residency at Boston Psychopathic pattern, globes, circles, and arcs are
Hospital, and a research appointment at constructed. (4) This organizes the
the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic of visual field into foreground and
Johns Hopkins Hospital. While at background. (5) Boundaries between
Hopkins she met and wrote a objects are delineated. (6)
publication with the Viennese Verticalization arises concurrent with
psychoanalyst and contemporary of body-image maturation as the postural
Freuds Paul Schilder, M.D., Ph.D. model shifts in the infant from the prone
Although Schilder was married and to the upright position. (7) Crossed
eleven years her senior, Bender is said lines, diagonal or slanting relations, and
to have fallen in love with him and angle formations are a later level of
moved to New York with him in 1930 to maturation, usually occurring at about 6
work at Bellevue Hospital once Schilder to 8 years of age.
had been offered and had accepted a
position there. After Schilders divorce, The niceties of all of these relations are
the two were married in November of often not completed, at least in
1936 and within the following four combinations, until the age of 11 years.
years the couple had three children. However, at six to eight years, the main
Tragedy struck shortly after the birth of principles have matured. Six to eight
their third child in 1940; leaving the years is also the age of "readiness" to
hospital after visiting Lauretta and his acquire skills of reading and writing.
newborn daughter, Paul was struck The childs motility and posture mature

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down and killed by a car. Lauretta did with control of whirling. Whirling
not marry again until she was 70 years games, typical of young children, are an
old, this time to Henry B. Parkes, Ph.D., immature expression of the primitive
and was widowed again after only five neck-righting reflex responses. Sports
years of marriage. take the place of ring-around-the-rosie
and aimless body play. Personality
Lauretta Bender may be best attains social maturity; the child goes to
remembered for her Visual Motor school and accepts teacher and
Gestalt Test first published in 1938. In classmates in place of his family.
her own words, here is some
background regarding the development Plasticity or fluidity (lack of
of that test: stabilization of usually perceived
form) of orientation on the
Here is the way the Visual Motor background and of separation of
Gestalt Test came into being: I objects by boundaries permits
am not a clinical psychologist variability of function. There
and have had no training in always remains a tendency to
psychology. I am a psychiatrist revert to more primitive forms.
and neurologist, a The younger or more deviate the
neuropathologist trained in the child, the more plastic and facile
pathology of the brain and the is the gestalt function. Certain
nervous system by S. T. Orton at pathological states associated
the time when he was doing his with disturbances, especially
important work with lags in maturation"such as
strephosymbolia. In 1930, I was childhood schizophrenia, early
a research associate to Adolf diffuse ("minimal") brain
Meyer, studying schizophrenic damage, and learning difficulties
adults at the Johns Hopkins "are characterized by more
Hospital and the Springfield plasticity or more primitive
State Hospital in Maryland. At responses. (Plasticity is a
that time, gestalt psychology concept from embryology
was just becoming known in this meaning "as yet undifferentiated
country through the work of the but capable of being
German psychologists Kurt differentiated.") (Bender, 1970,
Kaffka, Wilhelm Koehler, and pp. 29"30)
Max Wertheimer, all of whom
later came to this country, where Bender served on the psychiatric staff at
they finished their work. Bellevue Hospital from 1930 through
1956 and was appointed head of the
Gestalt psychology teaches that Childrens Psychiatric Division in 1934.
whatever we see or perceive we Bender also held numerous other
experience immediately as a global positions, including a professorship at
organized whole or gestalt. This New York University, a faculty position
organized whole is more immediately at New York State Psychiatric Institute,
experienced than any of its parts or and the post of editorial advisor to
details, which are recognized later by Action Comics"the latter stemming in
the process of differentiation. part from an article she wrote that
Wertheimer studied these phenomena focused on the role of comics in
with a variety of line drawings, developing childrens reading skills.
configurations, and gestalten, which he Lauretta Benders accomplishments
presented to adult subjects, asking them have been acknowledged by numerous
to describe what they saw. professional organizations, which have
bestowed on her a variety of honors and
I was interested in finding out how awards. Even in retirement in Maryland,
subjects who could not or would not Bender served as a consultant to various
talk would experience such gestalten. In organizations, including the Anne
the beginning these were psychiatric Arundel County Board of Education.
patients, often mute schizophrenics at
Springfield State Hospital and Bellevue References
Psychiatric Hospital. Later I was
interested in finding out how children, Bender, L. (1938). A visual-motor gestalt test and its
clinical use. American Orthopsychiatric Association
normal and not normal, experienced Research Monographs, No. 3.
gestalten, what their visual experiences
were and how they developed, from as Bender, L. (1970). The visual-motor gestalt test in the
diagnosis of learning disabilities. Journal of Special
young as they would respond to the test Education, 4, 29"39.
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until maturity. I therefore adapted some

of Wertheimers research
configurations, put them on cards, and
asked my subjects to copy them. Later,
Dr. Wertheimer personally gave my
work his blessing.

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