Effects of race and social class on preschool performance on the developmental test of visual-motor integration

The visual-motor integration of preschool children who varied in terms of race, sex, and socioeconomic status was assessed using the Beery-Buktenica Test of Visual-Motor Integration (VMI). An analysis of covariance revealed that there were significant main effects for race, sex, and socioeconomic status. Since, at the three- and four-year level, the VMI was normed only on white suburban children, the results of this study seemed to indicate the need for norms for black children at the preschool level. Thus, the second part of this paper reports normative data for black preschool children on the VMI.     

Technical analysis of a Central Asian wall painting detached from a Buddhist cave temple on the northern Silk Road

A great number of Central Asian wall paintings, archeological materials, architectural fragments, and textiles, as well as painting fragments on silk and paper, make up the so called Turfan Collection at the Asian Art Museum in Berlin. The largest part of the collection comes from the Kucha region, a very important cultural center in the third to ninth centuries. Between 1902 and 1914, four German expeditions traveled along the northern Silk Road. During these expeditions, wall paintings were detached from their original settings in Buddhist cave complexes. This paper reports a technical study of a wall painting, existing in eight fragments, from the Buddhist cave no. 40 (Ritterhöhle). Its original painted surface is soot blackened and largely illegible. Grünwedel, leader of the first and third expeditions, described the almost complete destruction of the rediscovered temple complex and evidence of fire damage. The aim of this case study is to identify the materials used for the wall paintings. Furthermore, soot deposits as well as materials from conservation interventions were of interest. Non-invasive analyses were preferred but a limited number of samples were taken to provide more precise information on the painting technique. By employing optical and scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, micro X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis, and Raman spectroscopy, a layer sequence of earthen render, a ground layer made of gypsum, and a paint layer containing a variety of inorganic pigments were identified.