Studying the effects of Porteus Maze Test in Children with Learning Disabilities

Venkatesan and L. Lokesh

All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysore, India

 The use of mazes to understand planning, intelligence, and problem-solving skills are well known. The Porteus Maze Test holds promise for its economy and ease of use for children with learning disabilities in India. This study seeks to try out the test along with two other non-verbal tests of intelligence to derive profiles of performance on these children. The distribution of chronological vs. mental ages during test performance and the extent, level, or degree of congruence between the tests is reported. Results indicate a decreasing gradient of scores and increased performance errors on all the tests with advancing age. This means that easier items are passed at younger age levels, and difficult ones are failed. The nature, types, and distribution of errors are listed along with implications for understanding the deficits in eye-hand coordination, graphomotor and visual-spatial deficits, fine-motor speed, foresight, perceptual planning, general reasoning, and problem-solving. The analysis of inter-correlations between the scores on pairs of the three tests of intelligence are reported as being moderate to highly significant (p: <0.05) ranging from 0.50 and 0.55 respectively. The implications and utility of adding the maze test to the regular armamentarium of already available tests of intelligence for children with learning disabilities in India are highlighted.

Keywords: Porteus Maze Test, performance tests, learning disability, problem-solving, graphomotor