Relationship of Bender Memory to Achievement in Arithmetic by First Graders

Abstract

At the end of first grade arithmetic and reading achievement scores of 84 children were correlated with power and precision of Bender Memory using the Bender Visual Memory Technique. Of the 20 correlations, 16 were significant. Support for recommended use of the Bender Visual Memory Technique as a clinical or diagnostic screening instrument for early assessment of arithmetic skill is provided.

Comparison of the relationship between two measures of visual-motor coordination and academic achievement

“…Arter and Jenkins (1979) question the entire diagnostic testing-prescriptive teaching model in which deficits on such measures are assumed to be related to deficits in academic achievement. Despite claims of correlational evidence for the relationship between these measures and indices of academic achievement (Beery, 1967;Koppitz, 1964Koppitz, , 1975Snyder, Massong, & Ashmore, 1980), Arter and Jenkins (1979) argue that "mere statistical significance is not evidence for validity." They recommend a criterion established by Guilford (1956) that a correlation coefficient of .35 be considered as a minimum cutoff for criterion validity, and that, where appropriate, extraneous variables such as intelligence be controlled for to avoid spuriously inflated correlations.…”