Normative indications for Xhosa speaking unskilled workers on the Rey–Osterrieth Complex Figure Test

Abstract

The aim of this study was to establish normative indications for the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure (RCF) copy, incidental recall and delayed recall tasks, administered in English on a non-clinical population of Xhosa, unskilled workers (N = 33) (females n = 21; males n = 12), with a background of relatively disadvantaged quality of education up to Grades 11 and 12. The sample was stratified into two age groupings (18 – 29 years, n = 17; 30 – 40 years, n = 16), equally distributed for sex and level of education. Within group statistical analyses compared subgroup test performances for sex and age within the total sample. Between group analyses were used to compare the performance of the present sample with age equivalent data derived from a meta-analysis of US normative data on the RCF task. There was an age effect in favour of the younger group for both the immediate and delayed recall tasks. The local data for all RCF tasks were significantly lower than the US normative data, with the indication that higher levels and/or quality of formal school education might advantage performance on this complex visuoperceptual copy and recall task.

Keywords:

• Rey Complex Figure
• norms
• cross-cultural

Notes

1. It is essential that these norms are not seen to be applicable to a young adult Xhosa speaking population with a higher level of education and/or a higher quality of education, because these individuals are likely to achieve higher performances that are more in keeping with the US derived norms, such as has been demonstrated on prior South African research on the Wechsler intelligence tests (Shuttleworth-Edwards et al., 2004).