Lauretta Bender
[citation needed] First published by Bender in 1938, the test became widely used for assessing children's neurological function and screening for developmental disorders.
[citation needed] She was one of the first researchers to suggest that mental disorders in children might have a neurological basis, rather than attributing them to the child's bad behavior or poor upbringing.
[6] After graduation, she spent some time studying overseas, completed an internship at the University of Chicago and conducted research at Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic of Johns Hopkins Hospital.
[4] Because she was not trained as a psychologist, but rather as a medical doctor and psychiatrist, most of her work focused on diagnosing mental disorders in children.
Bender met Paul Schilder M.D., PhD (1886–1940) at Johns Hopkins Hospital while writing a publication with him.
It was a common belief that African American people were at a lower level of evolution than their Caucasian counterparts.
It is believed, however, that the publications she released regarding the races being evolutionarily different were actually her late husband's work and that she left them unaltered as a form of respect.
Bender used the word "primitive" to describe French Guinean natives and used the term "civilized" to refer to African Americans.
Bender explained that "primitive" did not mean intellectually different, and that to her it described those who were not exposed to the same education and culture as those she considered "civilized".
It is important to note that with more knowledge, clinicians today would most likely diagnose these children with developmental or behavioral disorders.
[10] In an attempt to treat those patients diagnosed with childhood schizophrenia, Bender employed electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) after finding that the practice was successful in other applications.
In 1947 Bender conducted ECT on 98 children diagnosed with childhood schizophrenia under the age of twelve years.
After extensive art, talk, and dream interpretation sessions the child was placed into a foster home and was considered to make an impressive recovery.
[11] In another study, The Body Image of Schizophrenic Children Following Electroshock Therapy, Bender incorporated ECT and a child's self-image.
The principles measures in the test are; (1) Vortical movement, biologically determined in the optic field, gives rise to the most primitive visually perceived forms, such as circles and loops.
(6) Verticalization arises concurrent with body-image maturation as the postural model shifts in the infant from the prone to the upright position.
(7) Crossed lines, diagonal or slanting relations, and angle formations are a later level of maturation, usually occurring at about 6 to 8 years of age.
[5] Bender believed that the lower aged or more primitive abilities were signs of childhood schizophrenia, brain damage, or learning disabilities.
The lack of ability to communicate one's experience of being autistic (due to age) would cause them to be quiet and withdraw, and this was one of the signs of early schizophrenia.
[14] Steve Silberman, the author of Neurotribes,[15] is sharply critical of Bender's therapeutic approach to children with autism.
In the 1950s and 1960s, he told an interviewer from The Sun magazine, "autistic kids were often subjected to seclusion, restraint, and physical punishment by clinicians who did not understand their condition.
Bender observed that childhood anxiety, aggression, and hostility was often caused by frustration or developmental issues, either physically or environmentally.
