Bender Gestalt Test

• It is widely used primarily in diagnosing brain damage.

• Although the BGT has most frequently been used as a screening
device for brain damage, its research and clinical applications extend
beyond this area.
• It has been used to screen children for school readiness, predict
school achievement, diagnose reading and learning problems,
evaluate emotional difficulties, and study mental retardation, and as a
nonverbal-intelligence test.
• also used as a projective test for the assessment of personality.
History and development
• The BGT was originally assembled by Lauretta Bender in 1938 and discussed
in her monograph A visual Motor Gestalt Test and its Clinical Use.
• The nine designs were adapted from a set of 30 configurations developed by
Wertheimer, which he used to demonstrate the Gestlat Laws of perception.
• Wertheimer emphasized normal individual’s ability to respond to the
designs in an integrated and coherent manner.
• Bender developed this theme further and demonstrated how an individual’s
level of performance could be impaired by delayed perceptual-motor
maturation as well as by either a functional or an organically induced
pathological state.
Reliability and Validity
• Test-retest reliability using Pascal and Suttell (1951) system on a
sample population of normal over a 24-hour interval revealed a
reliability of .70 and interscorer reliabilities are reported approx. .90
for trained scorers for both Pascal and Suttell and the Koppitz
developmental system.
• Studies confirm validity of Bender;s usefulness in such areas as
predicting school performance, assessing emotional problems, and
differentiating brain damaged patients from normal.