Predicting Early School Achievement in Reading and Handwriting Using Major ‘Error’ Categories from the Bender-Gestalt Test for Young Children

Abstract

Errors by category and total errors on the Bender-Gestalt were used as school-entry predictors of later achievement in reading and writing in the primary school. After accounting for the effects of intelligence, apart from being related to ‘reading comprehension’ at Grade 1, die total errors made on the Bender were not a good predictor of later reading or writing performance. Circles for dots (a subcategory of the ‘distortion’ major error category) offered the most independent predictive value for later reading with the distortion category also of predictive value. The subcategory ‘lines for dots’ was the only Bender score significantly related to handwriting at end of Grade 2.