INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT and ITS ASSESSMENT Cognitive Assessment Aylin Küntay PSYC 453

What is Intelligence? Robert Sternberg defines intelligence such as: “the mental activities necessary for adaptation to, as well as shaping and selecting of, any environmental context” Adaptive value of intelligence Environmental, cultural and time-dependent nature of intelligence Domain-general vs. domain-specific nature of intelligence Mechanisms underlying cognitive abilities vs. content (knowledge base) Nature vs. nurture Stability vs. development of intelligence Interpersonal vs. intrapersonal differences in intelligence assessment

Psychometric approach to intelligence Or differential approach İntelligence can be defined in terms of mental factors tests can be constructed to reveal individual differences in these factors Various people have proposed different number and type of factors Spearman (1927) proposed that intelligence consists of only two factors g… influences performance on all intellectual tasks The specific ones are not generalizable: verbal vs. Visual-spatial

Evidence for g The best evidence for the existence of g is termed the positive manifold the frequent finding of high correlations among scores on cognitive tests that have little in common with one another in content E.g., Verbal and nonverbal abilities are correlated

Cattell (1971) A general intellectual factor, similar to Spearman’s g two second order factors called Fluid abilities Biologically determined and is reflected in memory span tests and most tests of spatial thinking Crystallized abilities Reflected in tests of verbal comprehension, skills that depend more on cultural context and experience

Examples from our research about fluid abilities Corsi spatial working memory task with children Digit span task with adults Children’s versions exist

Hierarchical model of cognitive abilities Relatively specific cognitive abilities, such as verbal, spatial, and memory These abilities, however, are correlated with one another (positive manifold), and are influenced by a second-order general factor, or g Widely accepted by most psychometricians

The Wechsler scales (David Wechsler in 1940s) 3 intelligence scales Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI) Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) Two larger factors Verbal subtest Performance subtest

Wechsler-verbal Information: what is the capital of Italy? Similarities: pear-peach; cm-gm Arithmetic: counting, addition and subtraction Vocabulary Digit span

Wechsler-performance Picture completion--- determine the missing part of pictures Picture arrangement Mazes Object assembly

Bayley Scales of Infant Development 1-3 m.s: responds to sound of bell; vocalizes once or twice; follow a red ring’s circular motion; displays social smile 5-7 m.s: smiles at mirror image; turns head after fallen spoon; does she use objects to make sounds; pick up small cube; vocalized 4 different syllables 9-12 m.s: responds to verbal requests; puts cube in cup on demand; stirs with spoon in imitation; turns pages of books; attempts to scribble in imitation 14-17 m.s: scribbles spontaneously; says two words; shows shoes or other clothing in response to where questions; builds a tower of three cubes; attains toy with stick

Aylin Küntay PSYC 453 Cognitive development: Research and Applications Measuring cognitive skills in components: Mullen Scales of Early Learning Aylin Küntay PSYC 453 Cognitive development: Research and Applications

Characteristics 0-33 months: gross motor scale Individually administered Infants and preschoolers from birth through 68 months Visual, motor, linguistic (receptive and expressive processing) 5 scales: gross motor, visual reception, fine motor, receptive language, expressive language Administration time varies depending on the age and the attention of the child: 15 min for 1 yrs, 30 min for 3 yrs and 60 min for 5 yrs 0-33 months: gross motor scale Careful supervision of small objects is advised (beads and pennies)

Gross motor development (experience of his own movements through space and time) facilitates development in visual and auditory modalities Cognitive and motor are two essential and interrelated parts of child development Composite score offers a summary score: Early learning composite (a measure of g, general cognitive factor underlying all cognitive performances) Individualized assessment of cognitive skills For each scale, scores, percentile ranks and age equivalents are calculated There can be unevenness: global score can be misleading

Application Choosing the appropriate month interval Basal and ceiling items (at least 1 point in successive 3 items for basal level; 3 consecutive zeros for the ceiling level) Items are presented in the order of difficulty, types of questions with differing difficulty levels Flexibility is permitted in the order of item administration to keep the child’s attention and motivation Alternating between scales or the choice of the subsequent scale is permitted

Application Encouragement without giving clues It is important to differentiate between child-driven and environmentally-driven failure on an item Multiple responses Refusal to respond: experimenter can return later or mark as R (taking into account refusal compared to failed items) Readministering some items the child failed to respond is also permitted, after warming up, the performance can change Some items require parental questioning or cooperation for encouragement of the child Some items require observational scoring

Scales Gross motor scale: acquisition of basic spatial and temporal concepts (knowledge about the physical world) Measures central motor control and mobility: head control, sitting, pulling to stand, postural adjustment, walking etc. Visual reception: performance in processing visual patterns: visual discrimination and visual memory Visual organization, similarities, visual sequencing, spatial awareness, shape, position and size of objects or pictures Lack of object labeling tries to unconfound visual discrimination from linguistic abilities

Scales Fine Motor: measures visual-motor ability (visual discrimination (motor planning) and motor control) Object manipulation and writing readiness: copying shapes, block designs, handling coins and beads Chance to observe the experimenter drawing and building blocks Visual aids (experimenter leaves the figure or design as a model) Two hand and one-hand manipulation of objects Turning pages of a book, unscrewing a nut and a bolt, stringing beads, folding, cutting

Scales Receptive language: measures child’s ability to process linguistic input: auditory comprehension and auditory memory Only output for general knowledge questions Auditory-visual integration: colors, functions of objects, length of sticks, position of children, likeness of pictures Short-term memory: requesting handling objects in a certain manner (commands)

Scales Expressive Language: measure child’s ability to produce language effectively: output Speaking ability, language formation and ability to verbalize concepts Auditory memory and verbal comprehension Repeating sentences, naming objects, verbal analogies, functions of objects, general knowledge about everyday events Observational scores concerning usage of sentences, pronoun during the entire testing procedure