Cognitive Styles of Students with Cerebral Palsy

Abstract

Cognitive style is frequently described in terms of performance on the Matching Familiar Figures Test. Because this test has a heavy visual perceptual loading its usefulness as a measure of cognitive style with cerebral palsied students, a population frequently characterized by ocular anomalies and visual perceptual deficits, may be questioned. The test and standardized tests of visual perception and motor accuracy were administered to 46 cerebral palsied students of normal intelligence. Chronological age was the major determiner of visual perceptual and matching performance. The matching data generally suggested that the cerebral palsied students' cognitive styles were qualitatively similar to those of nonhandicapped students, although the extraocular movements of some students appeared to affect the classifications of cognitive style to which they were assigned by the data.