This article discusses the current issues involved in the evaluation of children who have both intellectual gifts and a specific learning disability (SLD) in reading. Given recent changes in federal special education law (i.e., the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004), the use of a unified assessment model that…

Analyzes sex-related differences between mental rotation rate and spatial ability among adults, 14-year-olds, and 9.5-year-olds to determine the extent to which rotation rate is a correlate of various abilities. (HOD)

The paper notes A. Hore and W. Tryon's support of the developmental position that persons with and without mental retardation of similar mental age show similar cognitive patterns, but suggests that mental age is psychometrically invalid and Piagetian tasks are inappropriate to evaluate this position. An information processing approach is…

Phonological awareness is explored as a process for studying the cognitive deficits of dyslexic children without undermining the assumption of specificity. Discussed are the operation of Matthew effects, the importance of strict psychometric criteria in dyslexia definitions, and recognition that dyslexia represents an arbitrary criterion in a…

This study examines the nature of the highly variable black-white difference across diverse tests and indicates the major systematic source of this between-population variation, namely, Spearman's g. Eleven large-scale studies (discussed in the appendix), each one comprising anywhere from 6 to 13 diverse tests, show a significant and substantial…

Three major views of intelligence are compared and evaluated: the psychometric, the Piagetian, and the information-processing. The educational implications of each view for training content knowledge and intellectual skills are considered. How each view would approach training students in solving verbal analogies is discussed. (Author/BS)

The general ability factor (G), as enunciated by Charles Spearman in the model of cognitive functioning, has been the foundation of psychometric theory and test making practices for 80 years. Through these decades, some psychologists disagreed with this theory, especially Godfrey Thompson and E. L. Thorndike. Nevertheless, various aptitude tests…

This article discusses issues and difficulties encountered in efforts at the University of Birmingham (England) to standardize a new psychometric assessment tool, a tactile speed-of-information-processing test for children with blindness. The problem of defining the population on which the test is standardized is seen as particularly difficult.…

Cognitive theories of problem solving and cognitive psychologists' suggestions for teaching problem solving are reviewed. Theories and suggestions from creativity research are also considered. How high proficiency levels in problem solving are acquired and how best to teach problem-solving skills (for both well- and ill-structured problems) are…

Examines traditional psychometric approaches to measuring intelligence and recent work by cognitive psychologists to develop a rationale for a non-verbal reasoning test for 10- to 11-year-olds. Recent studies providing basis for analyzing structure of test items are outlined, and benefits of analyzing items at a sub-type level are discussed.…

To ascertain whether cerebral lateralities can be considered aptitudes or individual difference measures within an aptitude-treatment-interaction (ATI) framework, hemispheric asymmetries and cognitive psychometric tests were administered to 50 right-handed, Caucasian, male Navy recruits. Principal factor analysis with varimax rotation was computed…

Developmentalists are convinced that within each young child a process of unfolding occurs to regulate learning in ways that make worksheets and the "force-feeding" of isolated skills inappropriate. Still, worksheets are enormously popular in early education, and math education assumes that number is learned through internalization. Why…

The history of divergent-thinking tests suggests that new approaches to creativity testing are needed. Research has focused on the relation of creativity to insight, divergent problem solving, problem finding, and intelligence. A proposed situational model of creativity defines creativity as a meaningful response to open-problem, open-solution…