Level of perceptual development in normal achieving Mexican-American children as measured by responses on the Holtzman Inkblot Technique : a normative study

Abstract

The primary purpose of this proposed research was to provide preliminary normative data on the HIT for normal achieving Mexican-American children from grades one through six. Major questions of the study concerned differences between Mexican-American children's profiles according to grade level, sex, and SES; and differences between Mexican-American children's profiles and those of Mexican and Anglo-American children on the HIT. The sample consisted of 72 normal achieving Mexican-American children. Twelve children were selected from each grade, one through six, with equal numbers of boys and girls from upper and lower socioeconomic status groups. Socioeconomic status of the family was measured by a weighted combination of father's occupational level and father's education. Each child was individually administered Form A of the HIT. All protocols were scored by an independent scoring agency. The Mexican and Anglo-American samples were obtained from a previous study. This sample contained 135 pairs matched by age, sex, culture, and SES. There were significant differences between lower and upper grades and between boys and girls, but upper and lower SES groups did not differ significantly. Lower grades differed significantly from upper grades on four variables, 10 showed slight increases from lower to upper grades and four decreased slightly. Results between boys and girls indicated they were significantly different on seven of 18 variables. On the remaining 11 variables, results were mixed with boys and girls responding about the same. Cross-cultural analysis indicates Mexican-American and Mexican children were significantly different on five variables. Mexican-American and Anglo-American children differed significantly on nine variables. Or conversely, on eight variables Mexican-American children's responses were similar to those of Mexican children, on four variables similar to those of Anglo-American, and on one they were significantly different from both. On the four remaining variables Mexican-American mean scores were not significantly different from Mexican or Anglo-American children.