Two experiments with 64 college students are reported that examined the time course of retrieval in a sentence matching procedure. Results demonstrate that modifications are required for models that provide only a unitary value for the amount of match between a test probe and information in memory. (TJH)

The effect of using statistical and cognitive item difficulty to determine item order on multiple-choice tests was examined, using 120 undergraduate students. Students performed better when items were ordered by increasing cognitive difficulty rather than decreasing difficulty. The statistical ordering of difficulty had little effect on…

Tested 6- and 8-year olds' ability to construct irony in story-completion tasks. Found that story stems based on familiar events, for which structured, detailed representations are available, facilitated irony more than did less-familiar activities, supporting irony as a metarepresentational skill. Young children's irony manipulated cognitively…

It is a myth that adverse impact is either a property or a defect of employment tests. It is actually a property of the labor market, affected by disparities in academic achievement among groups. Agencies should use appropriate rigorous tests, eliminate artificial employment barriers, and consider a wide cross-section of job requirements. (SK)

A modal model of information processing was defined, and nine tasks that could be completed by persons with mental retardation were developed to operationalize the model. Results showed that individual differences in higher mental processes are highly dependent on basic cognitive abilities and can be predicted from them. (Author/JDD)

This article responds to commentaries (EC 604 996-998) on a paper by Douglas Detterman and others (EC 604 995), which developed and tested a modal model, with young adults with and without mental retardation as subjects, to assess basic cognitive abilities in relation to cognitive deficits. (JDD)

This paper argues that the popularity of Reuven Feuerstein's Learning Potential Assessment Device and the Instrumental Enrichment program is based more on philosophical considerations than on technical adequacy. The critique uses semantic, logical, and empirical grounds to conclude that dynamic assessment is not a serious competitor to…

This paper describes the Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities Test and recommends its use to assess discrimination acquisition or learning-to-learn skills of persons with severe and profound disabilities. (DB)

Studied use of games to teach simple classification and seriation constructs to 3-1/2-year-old children. Found substantial and maintained improvement on classification and seriation. Found that children generalized their new understanding of classification and seriation to different problems, and found that evidence for a more general cognitive…

Analysis of effects of different starting points on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development II Mental Scale found that starting at the child's chronological age consistently inflated scores, whereas starting at the lowest item set skewed results in the opposite direction. Testing downward until all items are passed and upward until all items are…

Application of person-fit statistics to cognitive diagnosis requires special efforts to detect normal and usual response patterns resulting from sources of misconception that are frequently observed among students. This study shows a solution for the problem by introducing an extension of a person-fit statistic developed by K. Tatsuoka (1985).…

Marginal maximum likelihood estimation equations are derived for the structural parameters of the Saltus model, and a computing approximation is suggested based on the EM algorithm. The solution is illustrated with simulated data and an example from the domain of mixed number subtraction. (SLD)

This study developed a test battery to assess the cognitive skills in children with physical limitations. A preliminary battery of 83 items was administered to 26 children, aged 26 to 36 months, with severe physical impairments. Rasch analysis yielded a final battery of 35 items with high internal consistency, interrater reliability, and…

Administered a battery of psychometric ability tests to 211 undergraduates and 622 other adults ranging in age from 43 to 78. Findings were consistent with the view that speed of information processing can be an important correlate of individual differences in rates of intellectual aging and a performance-specific confound that distorts estimates…

This study examined infants' enumeration of puppet jumping tasks. In Experiment 1, 5-7-month-old infants were familiarized to a puppet jumping two or three times, and tested with both numbers of jumps. Infants looked significantly longer at the new number, replicating Wynn [Psychol. Sci. 7 (1996) 164]. To probe further the stability of infants'…