The purpose of the present study was to explore the relative roles of IQ and cognitive processes in reading performance. A sample of 443 Spanish children (264 male, 179 female) ranging in age from 7 to 13 years were classified into four groups according to IQ scores (less than 80, 80-90, 90-110, greater than 110) and reading disabled (RD) and…

When Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act in 2004 (IDEIA 2004), local educational agencies (LEA) were permitted to use a Response-to-Intervention (RtI) approach for identifying children with possible learning disabilities for special education. Furthermore, IDEIA 2004 no longer required LEAs to establish an…

This study contributes to ongoing research in the field of school psychology by examining some of the effects of using the Full Scale Intelligence Quotient (FSIQ) to classify students aged 6-16 years according to their results on an individual measure of intelligence, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Third Edition (WISC-III, 1991).…

In tests with time limits, items at the end are often not reached. Usually, the pattern of missing responses depends on the ability level of the respondents; therefore, missing data are not ignorable in statistical inference. This study models data using a combination of two item response theory (IRT) models: one for the observed response data and…

Previous studies based on population cohorts born at least 35 years ago, have reported appreciable childhood cognitive deficits for twins. We compared longitudinal IQ scores from approximately 188,000 singletons and some 6000 twins who went to primary school in the Netherlands from 1994 to 2003. In addition, we used a family-based design in which…

Autism is characterized by an uneven profile of cognitive abilities and population studies show that approximately 10 percent of diagnosed individuals possess a skill that is significantly better than would be predicted by global IQ. Recent evidence suggests that individuals with autism who possess special skills may represent a distinct genetic…

An examinee-level (or conditional) reliability is proposed for use in both classical test theory (CTT) and item response theory (IRT). The well-known group-level reliability is shown to be the average of conditional reliabilities of examinees in a group or a population. This relationship is similar to the known relationship between the square of…

Recent data from 12 pairs of tests representing eight standardization samples show that American IQ gains have occurred at a rate of 0.308 points per year from 1972 to 2002. Linked with earlier IQ gains, Americans have gained about 22 points over the 70 years between 1932 and 2002. Comparing the new WISC-IV (2002) and the old WISC-III (1989) shows…

Mackintosh and Bennett [Mackintosh, N. J., Bennett, E. S. (2005). What do Raven's Matrices measure? An analysis in terms of sex differences. "Intelligence, 33," 663-674] reported that male students obtained higher scores than females on Raven's items that required for their solution addition/subtraction or distribution of two rules, but…

Spearman's "law of diminishing returns" or SLODR refers to a decrease in "g" saturation as ability level increases. SLODR has been demonstrated in a number of intellectual batteries but several important aspects of the phenomenon are not yet well understood. We investigated the presence of SLODR in the Kaufman Assessment…

Demonstrated that equally weighting Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale subtests that differ in validity reduces potential validity. Concluded that vocabulary and information in concert have greater validity than either subtest by itself and that the addition of a third test will not result in a consistent increase in validity. (LLL)

In keeping with a model of intelligence that identifies at least 12 intelligence "talents," formal and informal intelligence or talent assessments have been developed. This paper presents some of these informal instruments that can be used to assess convergent and divergent forms of intelligence. These nontraditional instruments have been designed…

Profile analysis refers to interpreting or analyzing the pattern of tests, subtests, or scores. The analysis may be across groups or across scores for one individual. This approach to analyzing data is being used by clinicians to help in the translation of the results of popular assessment instruments. This paper examines several examples of the…

One must be extremely careful about reaching decisions concerning the state of a child's cognitive development on the basis of the results of tests that are highly unreliable in their present form. (CK)