Roberts Apperception Test for Children – 2nd Editon

Roberts Apperception Test for Children – 2nd Editon (ROBERT-2) Glen E. Roberts, Ph.D.

This Second Edition of the popular Roberts Apperception Test for Children again uses storytelling to evaluate children\’s social perception. With an objective scoring system and updated norms, the Roberts-2 includes new Test Pictures that feature current hair and clothing styles but retain the thematic content of the original pictures. Children and adolescents are realistically depicted in everyday situations, with their families, with peers, or alone. In addition, there are now three parallel versions of the Test Pictures—one showing White children, one featuring Black children, and a third depicting Hispanic children.

The test focuses on the child\’s social understanding as expressed in free narrative. It assesses two independent dimensions: adaptive social perception and the presence of maladaptive or atypical social perception. The first of these is a developmental measure, the second a clinical measure. The scales on the Roberts-2, now refined for easier scoring and interpretation, reflect both developmental and clinical concerns:

Theme Overview

• 
  Popular Pull


• 
  Complete Meaning

Problem Identification

• 
  Recognition


• 
  Description


• 
  Clarification


• 
  Definition


• 
  Explanation

Outcome

• 
  Unresolved Outcome


• 
  Nonadaptive Outcome


• 
  Maladaptive Outcome


• 
  Unrealistic Outcome

Available Resources

• 
  Support from Self Feeling / Advocacy


• 
  Support from Other Feeling / Help


• 
  Reliance on Other


• 
  Limit Setting

Emotion

• 
  Anxiety


• 
  Aggression


• 
  Depression


• 
  Rejection

Resolution

• 
  Simple Closure or Easy Outcome


• 
  Easy Realistically Positive Outcome


• 
  Process described in constructive resolution


• 
  Process described in constructive resolution of feeling and situation


• 
  Elaborated process with possible insight

Unusual or Atypical Response

• 
  Unusal-Refusal, No Score, Antisocial


• 
  Atypical Categories

Like the original test, the Roberts-2 asks the child or adolescent to tell a story in response to each of 16 Test Pictures. After recording the stories, the clinician scores responses, according to objective criteria, for the presence or absence of specific characteristics. The Roberts-2 Manual offers extensive examples of children\’s stories, along with scoring instructions. New norms, grouped by age and sex, are based on a sample of 1,000 children and adolescents, ages 6 through 18, from all four U.S. Census regions. The sample is representative in terms of gender, ethnicity, and parental education.

The test\’s carefully standardized and formally coded content scales provide comprehensive and detailed insight into children\’s social understanding. Stories generated in response to the Test Pictures indicate where the child is on a continuum of social understanding. Typically, as children become more socially experienced, their stories reflect greater awareness of social convention, more differentiated themes, and clearer resolution of themes and conflicts. Moreover, the inclusion of clinical scales calls attention to the likely presence of social and emotional problems that are outside the norm.

The Roberts-2 Manual provides evidence of the test\’s validity, based on comparisons between the standardization sample and a clinically referred sample of more than 500 children and adolescents. This evidence supports use of the Roberts-2 in clinical assessment of children experiencing adjustment problems and in research on the development of social understanding in normal children.

The Roberts-2 is especially effective with children who are just entering counseling or therapy. It is also useful in measuring change over the course of treatment. And because it is standardized on nonreferred children, the test is an ideal way to assess developmental change and situational crises in normal children.

Complete Kit includes 1 Set of Test of Pictures Featuring White Children and Adolescents; 25 Record Forms; 1 Manual