African American adolescents disproportionately perform poorly compared to peers in both behavioral and academic aspects of their educational experience. In this study, African American male students participated in an after-school program involving tutoring, group counseling, and various enrichment activities. All students were assessed regarding…

Purpose: This study attempted to determine whether there were any differences or similarities in the basic cognitive and language skills of 4 groups of adolescents: adjudicated (a judge's decision to establish responsibility for a delinquent act) and nonadjudicated male and females. Method: The 4 groups of adolescents were 18 adjudicated females,…

This study examined the effects of prenatal cocaine exposure, environmental risk, and maternal verbal intelligence on children's cognitive ability. Gender and age were examined as moderators of potential cocaine exposure effects. The Stanford-Binet IV intelligence test was administered to 231 children (91 cocaine exposed, 140 unexposed) at ages 4,…

This paper describes five major conceptualizations of intelligence as: (1) a general ability; (2) a pair of abilities; (3) a limited set of multiple intelligences; (4) a complete set of multiple intelligences; and (5) a set of interacting cognitive and noncognitive factors that determine cognitive performance. Theories of multiple intelligence…

The theme of this special issue is education, democracy, and nationalism. It contains papers from the 1993 meeting, "National Pedagogy Day". Only a few of the 50 papers presented at the meeting are included in this issue. The papers in the issue are: "Powerless Against Criticism of an Anti-Democratic Theory" (J. D. Imelman);…

Rather than focus on the numerous flaws in the book "The Bell Curve" (Herrnstein & Murray), this discussion focuses on the racism and bigoted beliefs of the pioneers in the mental measurement movement in the United States--beliefs which provided the background and opportunity for the publication of the book. A significant amount of…

This study examined the relationship between scores on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-III (WISC-III) and the older Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R). School psychologists in Wisconsin were asked to provide data on 300 special education re-evaluations completed during the 1992-93 academic year. Pearson product…

This paper reviews Lev Vygotsky's theories concerning optimizing of potential through assistance, support, or instruction. The paper notes that there is a "zone of proximal development" or a band around intelligence quotient (IQ) scores reflecting one's true potential. IQ tests are generally well-standardized and "static,"…

The Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test and the Slosson Intelligence Test-Revised were administered in counterbalanced order to a sample of 32 school identified gifted and talented students (18 males and 14 females). Mean age was 11 years, 3 months. The K-BIT IQ Composite and SIT-R Total Standard Score produced a correlation of .61 (p < .001).…

In the fall of 1992, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-III (WISC-III) scores from 330 referred children in an urban midwestern school district were analyzed to provide information regarding score distribution of the referred population and of the ethnic and gender profiles within the referred group, and to examine changes from prior…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility of creating a short form of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) for use in a clinical setting with disabled readers. The subjects were 100 clients ages six to sixteen of the Belser-Parton Reading Center at the University of Alabama whose files contained scores…

The validity of Wechsler's (1949) comments concerning the addition of the supplementary WISC subtests was investigated for a sample of 20 fifth-grade students. The study was designed to investigate whether or not the addition of one or both of the supplementary WISC sub-tests, Digit Span and Mazes, affected obtained IQs of high achieving…

Discusses the difficulty of documenting the effectiveness of preschool programs and relates this to measuring instruments used and the type of design selected. Methods are provided to assist psychologists and educators to evaluate preschool programs. Three studies of preschool programs using different designs which involve published…

Reviews Richard Herrnstein's article and book concerning I.Q. and argues that the questions of the nature of intelligence and the respective influences of environment and heredity are important not just in the interpretation of statistical evidence but because these questions have implications in the lives of human beings. (Author/JM)

Test scores reflect the unfairness of social and environmental conditions. The remedy is not the elimination of the test or alteration of skills demanded by the school, so that there will be no need for such tests, but the elimination of learning inequalities and social inequalities. (Author)