24 6½-yr.-old children in a Greek mountain village had previously performed poorly on the Bender-Gestalt test when compared to two groups of similar aged children from higher socio-economic environments in Greece. After 4½ yr. of school experience, 17 of the original 24 children were retested with the Bender-Gestalt and the Raven's Matrices tests. If environmentally induced cognitive retardation is reversible, one would expect that the relative cognitive functioning of the mountain village children would improve after 4½ yr. of schooling. The results of this study do not support such an expectation, for the mountain village children's cognitive functioning was at least as low at age 11½ yr. as it was at 6½ yr. by comparison with both the Greek and American norms.
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