Error production in children's reproductions of the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure (R-OCF) was examined in this study. Subjects were a control group of normal children and two clinical groups--a language-based learning disorder group (LD) and a group of children with learning disorders secondary to tumors in the posterior fossa (infra-tentorial) region of the brain. The children were between the ages of 9 and 12 years. The LD groups consisted of 7 subjects with learning disorders primarily referenced to left frontal systems (LD-LF) and 18 subjects with learning disorders primarily referenced to left hemisphere systems in general (LD-LH). The tumor group consisted of 13 subjects. Subjects in the clinical groups were matched for age, sex, and handedness with the control subjects. A scoring system was devised to evaluate the production of ten error types across copy, immediate recall, and delayed recall administrations of the R-OCF. Statistical analyses were conducted to determine whether there were significant differences in error production between the control group and the two clinical groups across the copy and immediate recall conditions and between the two clinical groups across the copy, immediate recall, and delayed recall conditions. Problems of statistical power and sample size resulted in the elimination of the LD-LF group from the analyses. Consequently, the question of differences in error production between the LD-LF and LD-LH groups could not be answered and awaits research with a larger sample. Overall, results indicate that error analysis can reliably differentiate normal children from children in clinical groups. Children in the LD-LH and tumor groups produced significantly higher frequencies of errors in reproductions of the figure than children in the control group under copy and immediate recall conditions. Data on specific error types differentiating the control and the clinical groups is presented. The results also indicate that error analysis can reliably differentiate children in the LD-LH group from children in the tumor group. Data on specific error types differentiating the two clinical groups across the copy and immediate recall conditions is presented. No significant differences emerged between these two groups in error production for the delayed recall condition. Suggestions for conducting further research on error production in children's reproductions of the R-OCf are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-1427 |
| Date | 01 January 1996 |
| Creators | Irizarry, Roberto Anibal |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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