The Name of the Test The Children’s Apperception Test (CAT), according to Albert I. Rabin (1995) “was first published in 1949, and the manual reviewed was the eighth revised edition.” The test was revised in 1991. The Children’s Apperception Test is an extension from the TAT, which is for adults, using pictures of humans rather than animals. There is a CAT-H that uses human pictures, which was created after a controversy about whether animal or human pictures were best. There is also a CAT-S supplement. Purpose of the Test The Children’s Apperception Test (CAT) is a projective personality test used on children ages 3-10 years old. Children will decipher a series of 10 pictures consisting of animals, each in different situations. The …show more content…
The manual does not meet the standards that are recommended in the American Psychological Association Standards (Reinehr, 1992). The Development of the Test Test Administration The manual for the CAT indicates that knowledge of theories of personality, ego psychology, and cognitive development must be understood to interpret the made up stories of children (Shaffer, 1980). However, there is no set restriction of who can purchase the test, administer the test, or interpret the test responses. According to Shaffer (1980), “The CAT manual avers that it 'may be profitable in the hands of the psychoanalyst, the psychiatrist, the psychologist, the social worker, and the teacher, as well as the psychologically trained pediatrician.'” The test is given in the form of a game. Each of the ten cards are presented one at a time and the child’s story is to include the past, present, and future of the situation on the card. There is no set time that it takes to administer the test. Both administration and scoring are not standardized. (Hatt, 1980). Norm Information The normative information is limited. All that is known about the normative group is that it consisted of 200 children ages 3-10. This test is appropriate for the age group of children tested, 3-10. Knoff (1992) suggests that, “they fail to elaborate on this assertion, providing no data, documentation, or critical analysis. The CAT remains largely untested, despite the large number of articles published on its use.”
Test scores of individuals outside of this age range would not be considered valid, since there would be no norms to compare the individual’s scores to. Fortunately, there are no gender limitations since the normative sample included both males and females equally at all ages and grades (Pearson, 2009b). The normative sample also included several ethnicities representative of the U.S. population. In addition, the developers intended to reduce cultural bias by adding pictures of multiple cultures in the demonstration illustrations (Pearson, 2009b). However, it is important to note no differential studies were conducted for gender or race and ethnicity (Miller, 2010). Furthermore, the test was only normed in English and has not been translated into any other language (Pearson, 2009b). This will make it difficult for clinicians to administer the test to individuals whose primary language is not
Counseling uses two types of assessment to get a better understanding of their clients which are testing and diagnosis. Clients have the privilege to understand the purpose of what an assessment process involves and counselors are responsible to maintain the security test that they use and the proper supervision for the test-taking process (Remley & Herlihy, 2014, p.289). Chapter 11 discusses the dynamics of using psychological tests when assisting to resolve clients’ problems.
Why it is difficult for researchers to isolate specific causes of child behaviour - using two of your own examples. How is the term “correlation” a solution to this problem?
Little Children (2006) is a film that explores couples (Sarah and Richard) and (Brad and Kathy) and how unhappy they are in their marriages. Sarah and Brad start to develop a romantic relationship, which then frightens the other mothers in the park. Then, Ronnie, sex offender, and Shelia, a woman Ronnie’s mother, wanted him to see, go on a date. It went downhill once Ronnie asks Shelia to drive by an elementary school to masturbate.
While closely observing Zoe’s cognitive skills she showed evidence of Piaget’s preoperational stage. Zoe’s cognitive development is shown through her make-believe play. “Piaget believed that through pretending, young children practice and strengthen newly acquired representational schemes.” (Berk, 2007, P 227). When Zoe plays with her play dough she pretend that she is making pizza. She begins by taking a handful of play dough and placing it on the table, she then get a small rolling pin to roll the play dough out flat. Once the play dough is rolled out completely flat she uses little Lego’s to represent the pepperoni that tops most pizzas. Next she takes the finished pizza and puts it on the side of the table and
The Developmental Assessment of Young Children-Second Edition (DAYC-2) is a test given to children from birth through age 5 to measure if there are any delays in the early childhood development through the five different domains: cognition, communication, social-emotional development, physical development, and adaptive behavior. This test is individually administered and is norm referenced measure of early childhood development.
To administer the test, an examiner, trained in the field of psychology, presents one inkblot at a time and the person he assesses says what each card portrays based on his emotional, and intellectual state. The examiner keeps notes of clients verbal interpretation as well as his nonverbal behavioral responses, such as silence, facial expressions, and gestures. Next, he asks the client based on which perceptions, internal (personality) and/or external (inkblot) characteristics he utilized or was influenced by in order to respond, and once again the administrator keeps notes. Afterwords, the responses are categorized and evaluated based on client's distinguished observations and/or movements derived from the cards,
In this exercise, I was able to experience the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) from the perspective of the counselor, client, and observer. Since our group is composed of four members, I had a chance to play the role of counselor twice. The test proved to be an emotionally engrossing experience for both clients, so little questioning was needed to encourage them along in their storytelling. The most interesting aspect of the counselor role was in interpreting clients’ stories; for my first client, I presented a meaningful interpretation, while for the second, the client provided his own interpretations with the counselors’ guidance. In my role as an observer, I noted how challenging it can be for counselors to ask clarifying questions as opposed to leading questions. Finally, as a client, I was surprised by how easily my story for the test picture took on personal significance.
Strengths: This test was tested on 1525 children. In order for the test to be considered stable they should have tested at least 300 children. The far exceeded this amount. Another strength to this test is how many males and females were tested. There should be at least 100 people per age group tested in order to get a good measure and again this test far exceeded those numbers. Another strength would be the areas tested. The test clams to help test the Midwest region and they were able to collect samples from four different regions in the US in urban and rural areas.
Client Akhter, a 37-year-old adult woman, was administered the House-Tree-Person Projective Drawing Assessment on November 18, 2015 by Timara Tyler for the purpose of measuring her interpretation of the current thought process. The client presented well dressed and was extremely interested in getting detailed guidelines for this assessment. The House-Tree-Person Projective Drawing Assessment was administered following standard procedures in one sitting. Akhter appeared to be anxious and worried over test scores results, how they apply to her family, and the overall meaning. Although she did not display any unusual behaviors, the anxiety level was very high and client’s hands were shaking, which may indicate seriousness of her perception of
Meryl Alab, an eight-year-old, has an average weight of 50 pounds and an average height at 50 inches (CDC 2010). She is on track for a normal physical development, avoiding precocious puberty (Gade 2017a). Meryl lost her mother and younger sister to a car accident; her older brother died at birth. Her dad is a construction worker; he is not home most of the day and had left Meryl under the care of an apathetic babysitter in her first few years of life. At three years, old, Meryl moved in with her grandma, who became her primary caregiver. Knowing this about to Meryl, we applied developmental psychology theories to further understand her mental capacity, particularly in regard to her identity, cognition, attachment, and morality. Then, we tested her to determine her current development stage with respect to Piaget’s development theory. We also took the opportunity to propose methods that can help accelerate Meryl’s life.
Their measurements included parental report to affirm the presence of an imaginary companion in their child’s life, an index of verbal intelligence, the uses and abstract pattern tasks for creativity, and a procedure created by Singer in 1961 using a rocket ship, substituted by a car to measure waiting ability. No significant difference was found in intelligence or creativity, contradicting previous results of studies. A difference was seen in waiting ability, in that children with imaginary companions could sit and focus on one thing without getting distracted longer than those who did not have an imaginary companion. Researchers did not find the results on waiting ability significant enough to suggest that imaginary companions were correlated with this variable. Implications of this study were that they contradicted previous research, thus suggesting a reevaluation of earlier finding. Manosevitz and colleagues did indicate that the variance of results from this study could be linked to the parental report only method of child sampling (Manosevitz,
In 1905 Binet and Simon tested their measurements on another fifty children whom their school teachers considered to be of average intelligence for their ages. This test was to enable Binet to examine the levels of intelligent behaviors between children of the same age. Some of the tests on Binets scale were very simple, including asking a child to follow the direction of movement of a lighted match, and then maybe slightly harder was to repeat back a three digit sequence of numbers or sentences. There were a few harder tests involved which would require a child to make a sentence out of maybe three or four words, or to reproduce a drawing from memory.
To use the term in relation to non-human animals, is to make the assumption that they too have subjective experiences that are private to them and therefore unknowable by us (aspca.org). Animals obviously have emotions and therefore should not be tested on.
The Thematic Apperception Test or TAT was developed during the 1930s by the American psychologist Henry A. Murray and psychoanalyst Christiana D. Morgan at the Harvard Clinic at Harvard University. The TAT is published by Harvard University Press. The cost is $81 per test. The test takes a total of 200 minutes to give. It is given in two 100-minute sessions one day apart. The population that the TAT is given to are ages 4 and over.