Historical Background ae Seguin, a French physician, based his work on developing senses. In 1827, he opend a school for retarded children in Paris—the first of its kind. He called his teaching. “The physiological method—the whole training of the whole child.” This method emphasized the development of imperfect sense organs supplemented by academic and occupational training. Seguin published the first text book in this field. “The Physiological and Moral Instructions of Idiots” and thus contributed greatly to the fruitful pioneering activity in the field of mental retardation. Seguin’s influence was enormous, he. lectured widely and wrote many books. In 1884 he came to United States and here he assisted in setting-up the first three great institutions for the mental retardation, those of Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania. Seguin’s ambition and hope was to cure mental ~disease. One of his publications entitled “Idiocy : Its treatment by the physiological method” (Seguin, 1907) gave an added impetus to the pioneering work of Seguin who became interested in the prospect of training the mentally deficient. He was the first person to point out that the brains of mentally deficient children were not always deceased or abnormal but were often simply arrested in deyelopment. Description of the Test i One of the earliest performance tests was the form board developed by Seguin for use with the fecble-minded. Many of the “sense training” and “muscle training” techniques currently in use in institutions for feeble-minded were originated by Seguin. By these methods, low grade mental defectives are given intensive exercise in sensory discrimination and in the development of motor contré] Some of the procedures developed by Seguin for this purpose were eventually incorporated into ‘performance’ or non-verbal tests of intelligence. An example is the ‘Seguin Form Board in which the individual isrequired to insert ten variously shaped blocks into the corresponding recesses as quickly as possible. It i8 facility for arousing spontaneous interest in children, its amenability for brief and fairly satisfactory appraisal and the claim that itis a fairly valid ‘g’ test only below mental'ages of about 10 have made us use the Seguin Form Board as a routine test in our clinical set up to assess the 1Q of childrest below: 11 years of age and adult feeble-minded. It is generally suitable for mental ages between 3 to 10 years. With greater capacities, in accordance with Spearman’s (1927) “Law of Diminishing Returns”, it becomes a test of manual dexterity. In other words, it becomes a test of manual dexterity with increased age. id “2 Scanned with CamScanner(3) Procedure for Administration The board has ten wooden blocks of different shapes. While administering this test, these blocks are taken out by the examiner and stacked in front of the subject who has to put them back as quickly as he can. The task is repeated three times and the score is the time taken on the fastest trial. The following instructions are given to the subject : “Here are ten wooden blocks which have to be put by you in the appropriate space. Be as fast as you can. You will be allowed only three trials.” These tasks show the subject's manipulation, his ability to respond to pressure for speed and his performance when faced with difficulty. Standardization Sample J. Bharat Raj has administered Seguin Form Board Test on a total number of 1052 subjects (705 M and 347 F), the age-range being 5 to 15 years. S. K Goel administered SFB on a total number of 1125 subjects (749 males and 376 females), the age range being 3 to 15 years. The details are given in Table 1. The usual procedures of administration were followed, recording the time scores under the first three consecutive trials. Total time score of each subject in the three trials, their average and the shortest time score were noted. This was done for all the age groups. At the outset it should be pointed out that testing Table-1 : Number of Subjects (M and F) for Various 32 18 28 22 28 22 30 25 40 20 65 35 70 30 80 45 12 38 11 | 39 89 36 sald 29 33. 17 Scanned with CamScanner7 was not carried out in an ideal situation as per Scions: requirements but efforts were made to make the testing infaale as desirable as possible and this was the most that could expected in those circumstances. The standards under which data was collected were not such as to reject them from Scientifie treatment. For each of the subjects, particulars such ag age, sex educational status and father’s occupation were also recorded. Testing was carried out individually and the data was collected by, J. Bharat Raj and S. K. Goel at Mysore and Delhi Tespectively, Comparison Between Indian and Western Norms It can be seen from the Table that the time scores under Total Time (Average) and Shortest Time (Average), consistently decrease under the successive age groups, as should be expected, Also the difference in. time scores of successive age groups minimize in the upper age levels. This result is in line with the contention that the test is not so valid a test of ‘g’ above the ‘mental age of 10 years. In Table 2 are provided the tentative norms derived by J. Bharat Raj and S. K. Goel. The norms given by RB. Cattell are also provided in Table 2 and this would facilitate a comparison of Western norms with the Indian norms. .- Aclose comparison of Indian and Western norms of SFB high lights the similarities in performances of the Indian and Western children, rather than their differences. It has been found that our children don’t perform so well on this test as their western counterparts do. This finding was in accordance with that of Ramachandran, et. al., (1968), Apparently the western children seem to be favoured slightly on the speed factor, owing to better training fa in their cultural set-up. Or, it might also be due to the not too satisfactory situation in which our children were (4) peer rt ae proclamations, Homer, e dif ‘erence in not so prominent and surprisingly nowhere do we observe a difference beyond i Scanned with CamScanner(6) ‘Table-2 : Comparison Between Indian and Western identifying the mentally subnormal children as well. Correlation of SFB with Other Tests ‘Scanned with CamScanner“7 -( 6) . In some of the cases, there were no IQ records a 47 Pee Gress das! idea about the subject's intellectual fn and adaptive behaviour in addition to detailed case history, chological evaluation or each case was done by employing 4 battery of six tests viz, (i) Draw-A-Man Test (DAP) (Phatak, 1956 1966), (ii) Seguin Form Board Test (SFB) (Raj, 1971), ij) Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM) (Raven, 1956), (iv) P, ly Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) (Dunn, 1959), (v) Stanford-Binet Test (S. B.) (Kulshreshtha, 1971); and (yi) Vineland Social Maturity Scale (VSMS) (Malin, 1965), Since these six tests took a long time, the ‘Seguin’ Form Board and the ‘Draw-A-Man’ tests were administered in the first session, If the subject could do both the tests, he/she was given the : further tests. In other words, the Seguin Form Board was used as a guide for further testing as it has been found to be a good test in the diagnosis of mental retardation. The test was also useful in helping the child to adjust himself to the testing situation. Initially, SFB and DAP tests were applied to 95 children and a total of 60 children were finally selected for the intellectual assessment on various psychological tests. There were 33 (55%) boys and 27 (45%) girls. The age of these children ranged frum 10 to 18 years 10 months with the mean age of 14-9 years. They came from lower, middle and upper class families and most of their parents were either office employees and businessmen. Psychometric measures of these 60 children are given in Tables 3, 4 and 5. The means and standard deviations of the MAs and SAs on all the six tests have been shown in Table 3. Intercorrelations of scores on SFB with other tests were also computed by Pearson method and the results are shown in Table 4. Table-3 Mean and Standard Deviation of MAs and SAs on Six Tests, ‘Scanned with CamScannerquble-4 : Correlation of SFB with Other Tests, D. CPM _ /T 1 Jane Tt may be seen from Table-4 that the range of correlations ried from 0°31 to 0-50. All the correlation coefficients are gnificant at 0-01 level except rgrn_ppyr which is significant at “05 level (df=58) (Guilford, 1956), The positive and significant he ations between VSMS and other intelligence tests aaa a tial relationship between intellectual ability and social maturity among mentally retarded children. This is in agreement with other works (Doll, 1953; Goulet and Barclay, 1963 and Ram and Palsane, 1979). The data in this study revealed that psychometric scores are of considerable predictive power and that M. A is of approximately the same predictive value as in S.A. In order to correct the asymmetry and evaluate the ability of one test to ‘ict scores on a second tests, the regression equations were predicted. Table 5 shows the slope and intercept of different prediction equations derived from the data. The main use of a regression equation is to predict the most likely measurement in one variable from the known measurement in another. Between the two limits of r (— 1-00 or + 1-00), we could make predictions of Y from X or of X from Y with varying degrees of accuracy. The higher the correlation, the greater is the accuracy of prediction and the smaller the errors of prediction. SFB DAP X= 0-59Y + 33-51 Y¥ =0:37X + 51-66 CPM =. X= 0-35 ¥ + 76-02 ee: ‘Scanned with CamScanner(8) The above results were obtafhed by using the norms derived by J. Bharat Raj (1971). The norms derived by the investigation as given in Table 2 were also used by administering SFB on a different population of 60 mentally retarded subjects. The t-test was applied to find out the significant difference, if any between the results obtained by using norms of J. Bharat Raj (1971) and S.K. Goel. (1984). Total M, + My = 162-93 81-95 Pa = 369-99 ~ "50% qi) =1- py = 0-498 80-98 Pa = 369-99 = 9497. = 1 ~ py = 0-503 t =p, - pp = N, =N, = 60 Ny = Np = 60 Pi Po Pits , Pea t= a 0-502 - 0-498 = V'0:502 x 0°498+0-497 x 0-508 & 60 % 0508 9.055=N.8 ‘Scanned with CamScanner_— (9) Indian children. The test has been administered to mentally retarded by & large number of researchers (Mohan & Menon, 1968; Mohan and Sethi, 1968; Kuppuswamy, 1968; Mohan, 1972; Mohan & Suri, 1972; Prasad & Prasad, 1973; Singh, 1974; Reddy, Rao & Kuma 1976; Embar, 1977; Sen, 1978; Chattopadhyaya and Bhattacharya, 1980; Devi, Mathur and Dayal, 1980; Jehan & Ansari, 1981; Misra, Saxena & Pathak, 1981; Mohan. Bhandari & Sehgal 1982; Goel & Sen, 1984, ete). Only a few important studies have been quoted here but there are many more in which Seguin Form Board has been administered to make intellectual assessment of mental retarded children. REFERENCES Bhargava, M. (1989) Modern Psychological Testing and Measurement (8th Ed.) Agra, Har Prasad Bhargava. Chattopadhyaya P. K. & Bhattacharya, A. K. (1980) [Q on two tests : A correlational study with mentally retarded children Child Psychiatry, Quarterly, 13, 78-80. Devi, S.; Mathur, M. N.L. & Dayal S. (1980) Incidence of mental retardation in a child Guidance Clinic. Indian Journal of Mental Retardation. 13, 43-47. Doll. E.A. (1953) The measurement of social competence--a manual for the VSMS, Minneapolis Educational Testing Bureau. Dunn, L. M. (1959) Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Embar, P. (1977)C10%) Goel, 8. K. & Sen, A.K. (1984) Mental Retardation and Learning, Agra : National Psychological Corporation, Goel, S.K. & Sen, A. K. (1985) Psycho-educational Researches in Mental Retardation Agra, National Psychological Corporation. Goulet, L. R. & Barclay, A. (1963) The Vineland Social Maturity Scale : Utility in assessment of Binet M.A. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 67, 916 21. Guilford, J. P. (1956) Fundamental Statistics in Psychology and Education. New York : Mc Graw Hill. Jehan, Q. & Ansari, Z. (1981) A study of certain psychological characteristics of mentally retarded children. Indian Journal of Clinical Psychology, 8, 47-8. Kulshreshtha, 8. K. (1971) Hindi Adaptation of Stanford Binet Intelligence (1960) Scale Allahabad : Manas Sewa Sansthan. Kuppuswamy, B. (1968) A survey of mental retardation among children enrolled in middle schools of Mysore city. Indian Journal of Mental Retardation, 1, 12-9. Malin, A. J. (1965) Vineland Social Maturity Scale : Test its and manual of instructions. Nagpur : Nagpur Child Guidance Centre. , Misra, L. S; Saxena, N.K & Pathak, -M. P (1981) Some ‘Scanned with CamScanner‘oy Mohan, J., Bhandari, A. & Sehgal, M. (1982) A study of personality and adjustment problems of mentally retarded children Indian Journal of Mental Retardation, 15, 38-42, Mohan, J. & Menon, D. K. (1968) Mental retardation and * physical persistence. Indian Journal of Mental Retardation 1, 63-6. Mohan, V. & Sethi, L. (1968) A study of personality of mentally deficient children. Indian Journal of Mental Retardation, 1, 67-74. Mohan, V. and Suri, U. (1972) A comparative study of the effect of personality on performance of the normal and mentally retarded children. Indian Journal of Mental Retardation, 5, 18-24. Phatak. P. (1956) Directions for using Draw-A-Man Test for Indian children. Baroda : M.S. University, Phatak, P. (1966) Draw-A-Man Test for Indian Children Baroda : M. S. University. Prasad, M. & Prasad, D. (1973) A comparative study of term memory span. Indian Journal of Mental Retardation, 61, 102-07. - Raj. J. Bharat (1971) A. LI. 8. H. norms on Seguin form board with Indian children. Journal of all India Institute of Speech and Hearing, 2, 84-9. M. N. (1979) Diagnosis of mental the measures of intelligence and Journal of Mental Retardation, ‘Scanned with CamScanner( 12) Ramchandran, K.V.; Deshpande, V.A.; Apte, 8.V.; Shukla. N. LN. & Shah, M.R. (1968) A survey of school children in Bombay city with special reference to their physical efficiency, mental and nutritional status. Bombay : Asia Publising House. Raven, J. C. (1956) Coloured Progressive Matrices : Sets AA, AB, B London : Lewis. Reddy, YR; Roa, VS. & Kumari, K. (1976) Determatoglyphics in mental retardation Indian Pediatrics, 13, 629-33. Seguin, E. (1907) Idiocy : Its treatment by the physiological method. New York : Bureau of Publications, Teachers college, Columbia University. Sen, A. (1978) Factors affecting transfer in the retarded. Indian Journal of Mental Retardation, 11, 36-47. Singh, M.V. (1974) Some psycho-biological correlates of mental subnormality. Indian Journal of Mental Retardation, 7, 25-30. ‘Scanned with CamScanner