Jerome M. Sattler

Hurricane Andrew: Psychological distress among shelter victims

This study examined psychological distress and functioning among Hurricane Andrew victims who lost their homes and were living in shelters. Four and one-half weeks after Hurricane Andrew struck southern Florida, 89 (45 males, 44 females) Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites completed a questionnaire. The questionnaire asked for information about psychological and psychophysiological symptoms, use of mental health services, coping responses, and extent of preparation for the storm. The findings suggest that loss of home and property were related to distress and depression. About one-quarter of the sample were moderately depressed. Over one-third of the sample reported experiencing psychological and psychophysiological distress. Approximately one-half of the subjects did not take the hurricane warnings seriously. White subjects began preparing earlier for the storm, and evacuated their homes more frequently than did Black subjects. Implications of the findings and future research directions are discussed.

Performance of Bilingual and Monolingual Hispanic Children on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised and the McCarthy Perceptual Performance Scale.

This study evaluated the receptive vocabulary ability and nonverbal cognitive ability of 20 monolingual (Spanish-speaking) and 11 bilingual (Spanish/English-speaking) Mexican-American preschool children, ages 45 to 65 months. The children obtained significantly lower scores on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) than on the Perceptual Performance Scale of the McCarthy Scales of Childrens Abilities. On both measures, the bilingual group obtained significantly higher scores than did the monolingual group. The results support prior recommendations that the PPVT-R not be used to estimate the intelligence level of Hispanic children.

Relationship between WISC-R and WRAT in Children Referred for Learning Difficulties.

Correlations between the WISC-R Full, Verbal, Performance, and Freedom from Distractibility Scale IQs, WISC-R subtest scaled scores, and Wide Range Achievement Test Reading, Spelling, and Arithmetic standard scores were computed for a sample of 114 children (64 boys, 50 girls), aged 6 to 16 years, who were referred for psychological evaluation because of academic or learning difficulties. The Full Scale IQ, Verbal Scale IQ, and Freedom from Distractibility IQ correlated moderately with the three achievement area standard scores (rs of .48 to .59). However, the Performance Scale IQ correlated minimally with reading and spelling scores (rs of .26 and .27), but moderately with arithmetic scores (r = .40). The results support the concurrent validity of the WISC-R.

A Review of Intelligence Test Modifications Used with Cerebral Palsied and Other Handicapped Groups

1 Preparation supported in part by Grant 15-P55277/9-02 from the Social and Rehabilitation Service, Dept. HEW. The helpful suggestions of Edward A. Jacobson and Michael D. Dowdle are gratefully acknowledged. Intelligence tests which are designed for and standardized on a nonhandicapped population are often administered to handicapped children. However, the physical disabilities of these children frequently make it impossible for them to perform on such tests. Therefore, modifications in test procedures are often necessary, but modifications can create

Scoring Difficulty of the WPPSI Geometric Design Subtest.

The study investigated the level of agreement among graduate students (N = 14) and school psychologists (N = 18) in scoring drawings for the 10 designs on the WPPSI Geometric Design subtest. Considerable scoring disagreement occurred within each group. Unanimous agreement was found for only 11 out of 50 drawing items among the graduate students and for only 7 out of 50 drawing items among the school psychologists. While the raters were generally confident of their ratings, there also was a significant positive relationship between level of scoring agreement and confidence ratings (rho = .76, p < .05). Scoring disagreement was greater for the drawings on designs 6 through 9 than on other designs. The results suggest that careful study of the WPPSI scoring criteria is needed in order to achieve scoring proficiency.

Motor and cognitive proficiency of learning disabled and normal children

Abstract Motor and cognitive skills of learning disabled ( N = 32) and normal ( N = 32) boys were compared on the Modified Lincoln-Oseretsky Motor Development Scale and on the WISC-R Vocabulary and Block Design subtests. Eight learning disabled and eight normal boys were tested at four age levels from 8 to 11 years. All boys were of normal intelligence. Motor and cognitive skills of the learning disabled boys were significantly below those of the normal boys and below those of the normative group. Chronological age was not a significant factor in relationship to either motor or cognitive skills. Intercorrelations indicated that in the learning disabled group Block Design, but not Vocabulary, was significantly related to motor scores at the 8- and 9-year ages. These results suggest that a common factor relating to perceptual-motor coordination and efficiency may be involved on the Lincoln-Oseretsky and Block Design subtest for young learning disabled children but not for older learning disabled children or for normal children.

Ethnicity and bender visual motor gestalt test performance

Abstract This study compared differences in the Bender-Gestalt mean error scores of the 1,938 black, Hispanic, and white children in the System of Multicultural Pluralistic Assessment (SOMPA) standardization sample. A two-way between groups unweighted means ANOVA was performed on the error scores for the seven age groups and for the three ethnic groups. Significant differences were found for both main effects. Black children performed lower than (a) white children at every age level and (b) Hispanic children at all except one age level. Hispanic children performed similarly to white children at all except two age levels. Results support those reported by other investigations, but do not offer any clues to account for the findings.

Verbal Learning in Schizophrenics and Normals

Abstract27 hospitalized chronic schizophrenics and 27 normals, matched on age, sex, and vocabulary ability, participated in a verbal learning task. 21 words, selected to represent evaluative, potency, and activity semantic factors and matched for Thorndike-Lorge frequencies, were presented via a memory drum on 3 trials. Normals recalled more words than schizophrenics, both groups recalled more words on each succeeding trial, and normals recalled more evaluative factor words than other factor words, while schizophrenics recalled more potency factor words than other factor words. The 2 groups did not differ significantly in the number of incorrect words they wrote. The results were interpreted as supporting an interference theory of schizophrenic functioning.

Sex differences on purdue pegboard norms for children

Purdue Pegboard norms on 1334 normal school children (ages 5 to 16 years) were used to investigate sex differences in fine motor dexterity (preferred hand, nonpreferred hand, both hands, and assembly). Fifteen of 88 t tests were found to be significant, with girls outperforming boys in each case. Most of the differences were with the preferred hand and assembly at ages 10 through 15 years. The results suggest that girls have somewhat better fine motor dexterity than boys, although the results are by no means pervasive.

Comments on Cieutat's “Examiner Differences with the Stanford-Binet IQ”

The methodological, sampling, and statistical problems encountered in Cieutats (1965) study indicate that his findings cannot be accepted with confidence.