Toward International Normative Reference Data for the Comprehensive System

Abstract

We build on the work of all the authors contributing to this Special Supplement by summarizing findings across their samples of data, and we also draw on samples published elsewhere. Using 21 samples of adult data from 17 countries we create a composite set of internationally-based reference means and standard deviations from which we compute T-scores for each sample. Figures illustrate how the scores in each sample are distributed and how the samples compare across variables in eight Rorschach Comprehensive System (CS; Exner, 2003) clusters. The adult samples from around the world are generally quite similar, and thus we encourage clinicians to integrate the composite international reference values into their clinical interpretation of protocols. However, the 31 child and adolescent samples from 5 countries produce unstable and often quite extreme values on many scores. Until the factors contributing to the variability among these samples are more fully understood, we discourage clinicians from using many CS scores to make nomothetic, score-based inferences about psychopathology in children and adolescents.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to all the authors who contributed data to this Supplement and to the analyses reported in this article. In addition, we appreciate the insightful and critical comments on an earlier version of this article from Anne Andronikof, Jan Ivanouw, Bill Kinder, Carl-Erik Mattlar, Mariko Matsumoto, Joni Mihura, Regina Gattas do Nascimento, Barry Ritzler, Tony Sciara, Serge Sultan, Shira Tibon, Donald Viglione, and Irving Weiner.

Notes

¹The previous version of the adult sample from Italy that is presented in this Supplement (Lis, Parolin, Salcuni et al., 2007/this issue), was not included in those analyses in part because of the reasons that are detailed by Lis, Parolin, Calvo et al., (2007/this issue).

²Although many CS variables are not normally distributed, according to the Central Limit Theorem, the distribution of the Ms and SDs becomes increasingly normal as the size of the original samples increases. With the relatively large samples included here, computing an average M and SD should not be problematic.

³Results are essentially identical with this sample included; the mean T-score across variables is 50 and the SD _MT for each variable ranges from 1.1 to 6.8 (M = 2.7).