January 13, 2010 KFD

This weeks main assessment was the KFD, or the Kinetic Family Drawing. This one can help assess problems that may be going on within a family. In a class last semester we got to do this assessment, and it was a fun and interesting one. One can really learn a lot from this one! The main reading (or the one I will talk about) for this week is Groth-Marnat, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, which are about the KFD as well as the Bender Gestalt Assessment. I think that the most interesting thing I learned from this reading was about the Bender-Gestalt Assessment, as I have heard of many of the others before. It is used to evaluate visual-motor functioning and visual perception skills. The interesting part to me is that it is used in both children and adults, whereas many of the assessments are for one or the other, not typically both. This test can also be used to assess brain damage, as well as the maturation of the nervous system.
Chapter 1 discusses some of the changes assessments have gone through over time, such as their uses throughout psychology, as well as their uses within art therapy. It also has a checklist of sorts for what clinicians should do for assessments, so as to get the most accurate information possible. Chapter 2 then delves more into legal responsibilities and obligations and such.
We also learned about the Bender-Gestalt assessment today. Here is some more information;

Basic Information

• By Lauretta Bender, 1938

• One of the most used psychological tests.

• Developmental test for children and psychopathology in adults

• Individually administered, paper and pencil test that contains 9 geometric figures.

• Bender (1938) operated under the assumption “that the visual gestalt function is a fundamental function associated with language ability and closely associated with various functions of intelligence such as visual perception, manual motor ability, memory, temporal and spatial concepts and organization” (p. 112).

Constructs and Models

• Visual-Motor Perception and Integration

• Bender: Maturation and psychopathology

• Hutt: psychodynamic projective personality

• Koppitz: Development

• Lacks: Neuropsychological screener

Previous Research

• Piotrowski (1995)

“mainstay in the assessment battery…as an assessment tool in appraisal of intelligence…as a screening technique for neuropsychological dysfunction, a clinical tool for sampling visual-motor proficiency, and as a standard projective technique in the assessment of personality” (p.1272)

Visual Disorders

• Agnosia – inability to visually identify

• Hemianopia – half loss of visual field

• Scotoma – small lesions, spots in visual field

• Optic Ataxia – deficit in visually guided hand movements

• Prosopagnosia – facial agnosia

• Alexia – inability to read

• Neglect

Article

six designs (A, 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8) as deHirsch, Jansky, and Langford (1966) and Jansky and deHirsch (1972), a six-point scoring system was devised for greater differentiation in scoring each design. Scoring ranged from 0, for random drawing, scribbling, having no concept of the design, to 3, all major elements present and recognizable with only minor distortions, to 5, accurate representation. Does not capture whole design (see ASB, Innovative Features of BG II (Brannigan, Decker, & Madsen)

History of Scoring

• Qualitative methods based on rating scale demonstrate high reliability and validity, (Sattler)

• Capture whole performance

• Clear construct dimension

New Developments

The revision of the BGT is currently taking place, and includes:

1. New items

2. Memory recall

3. National norms (N=5,000)

4. Clinical validity

5. Time and planning estimates

6. Quantitative/Qualitative scoring

7. Co-normed with Stanford-Binet

8. Test observation form

Assessment Process

1. Review Referral Info
2. Obtain Background, Social, and Setting Information
3. Hypothesis Development
4. Select & Administer Tests
5. Interpret results
6. Intervention Strategies/Recommendation
7. Report
8. Communicate with Teacher/Parent
9. Follow up

Here is a link for an article dealing with the KFD:

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B7urbxbv8yPDZTM5MzIzZjgtMzRmZC00NzhjLThhNzgtYTA1YzJmMTQwN2Vj&hl=en