Effectiveness of the Benton right-left discrimination test in identifying children with reading disabilities.
Date
1969
Authors
Hundleby, Glenn Daryll
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Abstract
This study investigated the effectiveness of the Benton Right-Left Discrimination Test in identifying children with reading disabilities among eighty-six grade three subjects, selected randomly from seven elementary schools in Victoria, British Columbia. The children were classified as either confused (C) or not confused (NC), and again, as either reversal (R) or normal (N), in their responses on right-left discrimination. The criterion variable, reading ability, was determined on three separate measures.
The effectiveness of the Benton Right-Left Discrimination Test was demonstrated when children in the C and R groups were found to be significantly poorer readers, on two measures of reading ability, than children in the NC and the N groups. Differences on the third measure of reading ability, Word Knowledge, were not significant, indicating that poor word recognition skills are probably not characteristic of the reading disability identified. A strong trend toward a significant difference in intelligence was observed between the C and NC groups, however, there appeared to be no relationship between intelligence and systematic reversal, as this trend did not occur between the R and N groups.