F OR years, psychologists in the New York City Board of Education, like those throughout the country, have used the Revised Stanford-Binet as the basic technique in measuring general intelligence. Although they have found it a most useful instrument, they have felt that it is very heavily weighted with verbal items and has yielded an inadequate measure for many children from culturally limited homes. Further, the test has not lent itself too well to diagnostic analysis of abilities because of the diverse types of items at different age levels.When the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children was constructed, the psychologists were eager to try it out, for it seemed to answer many of their criticisms of the Binet. It included items to measure similar abilities at all age levels, permitted more opportunity for diagnostic analysis, gave a performance rating as well as a verbal and full-scale rating, and had material that was appealing to children and simple for the examiner to administer.Before accepting an instrument like the WISC to take the place of the Binet, however, the psychologists felt that not only would it be 1The writers would like to acknowledge the assistance of the following psychologists who participated in the testing program:
H E N the Rorschach Examination is ideally used, it is extremely time-w consuming. In a busy clinic, where pressure of work is great and demands on time extreme, time becomes an important factor. The usual diagnostic or full study case, for example, requires an average of about four hours for the psychological examination, one to two hours for the psychiatric, about an hour for the physical examination, and frequently time for special tests or examinations such as the neurological, basal metabolism, aphasic status, Betts Telebinocular Test, special diagnostic tests, etc. Added to this is time needed for the social study, for clearing, correspondence, conferences, and detailed reports, not to mention time needed for treatment of some cases. With a staff that is numerically inadequate to handle the problems occurring among a million school children, and with the necessity for handling as many cases as possible with as little expense as possible, the need for economy in time becomes even more apparent. The addition of a time consuming instrument like the Rorschach must, therefore, be fully justified in terms of returns. The burden of proof is placed directly on the person employing the test.During the early days of the use of the Rorschach a t the Bureau of Child Guidance, perhaps three hours were required for each case for administration, inquiry, scoring and interpretation, and since the instrument had not as yet been established a t the clinic, the psychologists using it had to do much of the work of scoring and interpretation a t home on their own time after bootlegging the examination itself during clinic hours. I t was not long, however, before psychiatrists and social workers began to demand the Rorschach on all cases, but the necessary time still could not be found a t the clinic until perhaps a year of experience with the instrument had elapsed. Then i t was found that psychologists were able to complete the entire process in about an hour. At present, therefore, we allow about a half hour on the average, although there are many exceptions, for administration and inquiry with the patient, and are forced to find odd moments during the day to do the rest. Thus, as far as scheduled time added to the appointment of the child a t the clinic is concerned, we add only a half hour, sometimes eliminating other items for this time, and sometimes, when it can be managed, adding this to the total clinic time for each case.Naturally, a total time of one hour does not permit of elaborate, detailed and ideal interpretation. In this time we cannot extract all the possible implications of the Rorschach, and do the type of interpretation that we see so often in the literature. Only the barest essentials can be extracted. Frequently, the psychologist administering the Rorschach is compelled to enter the case conference Delivered at meeting of N. Y. Rorschach Institute, Fcb. 26, 1940, N. Y. Psychi.itric Institute. 503
The historical development of the Rorschach method as applied to children, its uses in the child guidance clinic, and its limitations in work with children are discussed. It is concluded that the method has proved a valuable clinical adjunct to the psychological test battery in the child guidance clinic, in child-guidance work in the broader use of the term, in education, and in related fields. 11 uses of the method in the Bureau of Child Guidance are cited.
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