Incidence and Doubtful Significance of Nonstandard Orientations in Reproduction of the Key from the Aphasia Screening Test

Abstract

Nonstandard key orientations (reversed, vertical, diagonal, indeterminant) were studied for 138 normal control subjects and in 1,235 patients obtained from three sources. Keys in nonstandard orientations were slightly but not significantly more frequent in the patient groups. The vast majority of nonstandard keys were reversed. Comparisons with persons having normal key orientations on biodata, neuropsychological, intellectual, and personality variables gave negative results. Retesting a portion of the sample showed that the tendency to reproduce the key in irregular orientations was consistent over time in only about half the cases. In contrast to occasional reports in the literature, it appears that nonstandard orientations in the drawing of the key in the Aphasia Screening Test ate infrequent, somewhat inconsistent in appearance, and likely of little or no demonstrable clinical significance.