The relationship between psychometric intelligence and reaction times (RT) was studied in 60 undergraduates using an elementary cognitive task, the Sentence-Picture Verification Test. Results, which show that psychometric intelligence is substantially correlated with RTs even after practice, support the mental speed hypothesis of general…

This commentary on a paper by Douglas Detterman and others (EC 604 995), which tested a model assessing basic cognitive abilities in young adults with and without mental retardation, criticizes the paper for drawing conclusions not justified by the empirical results. (JDD)

The dichotomous Rasch model was applied to verbal subtest scores on the Intelligence Structure Test Battery for 905 12- to 15-year-old secondary school students in the Netherlands. Results suggest that, if any factor is used to increase difficulty of items, that factor should be used on all items. (SLD)

The issues of construct validity, predictive validity, and item content bias on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) are examined. The review concludes that most objective data have not supported the issue of bias of the WISC-R when used with children of different ethnic backgrounds. (JDD)

Asa Hilliard, an African-American educator, stresses the following points: (1) the African-American cultural style tends to be more improvised, wholistic, and person-oriented than the European style; (2) teachers can be more democratic and equitable by recognizing cultural differences; (3) intelligence tests tend to hurt African Americans; and (4)…

Proposes that educational researchers consider the implications of a new psychological concept, dysrationalia: the inability to think and behave rationally despite adequate intelligence. The paper argues that researchers need an intuition pump, or prompt, like dysrationalia to aid in reconceptualizing intelligence because I.Q. tests do not measure…

Responds to article by Bagnato and Neisworth on social and treatment "invalidity" of intelligence testing for early intervention with preschoolers. Agrees with Bagnato and Neisworth that psychologists should employ wide variety of procedures and practices in their assessment of preschool children. Disagrees with conclusion that intelligence…

Responds to article by Bagnato and Neisworth on social and treatment "invalidity" of intelligence testing for early intervention with preschoolers. Contends that "intelligent" testing as part of appropriate assessment practice with young children will avoid many problems with "intelligence" testing as outlined by Bagnato and Neisworth. (NB)

Investigated correlations between two intelligence measures for exceptional children. Corrected correlations between the tests indicated differences with correlations reported in one manual. Relationships were generally higher than those reported elsewhere. Implications are discussed, especially those involving the use of correlations between…

Administration of nonverbal IQ tests to 12 children with normal language and 12 with language impairments (ages 8-10) revealed that the children with language impairments had lower scores than controls, and that nonlinguistic deficits of children with language impairments adversely affected their responses to specific types of items on nonverbal…

Because they used an inappropriate statistical procedure, J. H. Kranzler and A. R. Jensen (1991) have not demonstrated that a factor of general intelligence ("g") depends on several independent factors. A factorial reanalysis of their data suggests that speed and efficiency of information processing are important in "g." (SLD)

The hypothetical idea of a perfectly pure psychometric "g" is empirically unattainable. Because the unity of "g" cannot be proved or disproved by factor analysis, the unitary "g" hypothesis represents a parsimonious assumption. J. B. Carroll's (1991) analysis demonstrates the relationship between psychometric and…

Eighteen children (mean age 10.2 years) with mild mental retardation were pretested on a variety of measures and then instructed on Piagetian concepts twice per week for 4 months via a learning set technique. When posttested at semester's end, the children had, with few exceptions, mastered the concepts and made significant gains on the Peabody…

Studied structure of Stanford-Binet: Fourth Edition for normal children who were not part of standardization sample. Found that, for children aged 2-6 years, either 2- or 3-factor model could be supported. For students aged 7-11, neither of 2 models studied was supported. Alternative model with verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning,…

Difficulties inherent in differentiating practice effects from meaningful change in neuropsychological retest data are illustrated in this case study of a personal injury case. Although the patient demonstrated substantial gains on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale Revised, most of the tests given on successive days did demonstrate acceptable…