What is "Grassi Cube Substitution Test" and what can you tell about a
person from the results?

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Request for Question Clarification by davebug-ga on 04 Oct 2002 08:31 PDT

Is it possible the test is actually named the Grassi Block Substitution Test?

Hi husaro-ga,

According to Tests in Print, the Fifth Mental Measurements Yearbook
and the Health and Psychosocial Instruments Index, the test is indeed
as davebug-ga suspected called the "Grassi Block Substitution Test."

Its full name is the Grassi Block Substitution Test: For Measuring
Organic Brain Pathology.  The population, that is the groups for which
the test is intended, is listed as being mental patients.  The author
and publisher of the test is Joseph R. Grassi.

Tests in Print IV, edited by Linda L. Murphy, Jane Close Conoley, and
James C. Impara.  University of Nebraska Press, 1994, vol.1 1082.

Ordinarily, it is very difficult to get your hands on a test without
going directly to the publisher; tests tend to be heavily, heavily
copyrighted.  However, luck is on your side because I found "the
Grassi Block Substitution Test for Measuring Organic Brain Pathology"
in an academic library.

Grassi describes his test as "designed to demonstrate the early and
late mental changes due to organic intracranial pathology, as well as
impairment caused by functional factors."  And later, that it "was
devised to demonstrate impairment in both the concrete and abstract
spheres."

The Grassi Block Substitution Test for Measuring Organic Brain
Pathology by Joseph R. Grassi.  Charles C. Thomas Publishers, 1970, p.
10.

The test taker "is asked to reproduce designs--with cubes--from actual
block models placed before him,"[Grassi, p11] There are five separate
designs but the test taker has to construct a total of 20 patterns. 
There is more involved, but the essence is that the test allows for
evaluating "two degrees of concrete performance and two degrees of
abstract behavior," and determines the ability of the test taker to
shift between the abstract and the concrete.  This can help detect
organic defects in early stages as well as in the later levels[Grassi,
pp 11-12].

I hope this answers your question.  

Regards,
luciaphile-ga

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Clarification of Answer by luciaphile-ga on 04 Oct 2002 10:26 PDT

I hit the send button too soon.  

Search strategy:

Having had previous experience looking up tests, I went first to the
index of Health and Psychosocial Instruments and then to Tests in
Print.  These gave me the references to the test itself.

google search:
"grassi block substitution test"

then searched the library catalog for items by Grassi.

regards,
luciaphile-ga

Excellent  and full information, given in a friendly way, very useful for me.