1. INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT and ITS ASSESSMENT
Cognitive Assessment
Aylin Küntay
PSYC 453

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

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

7. 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

8. 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

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

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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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)

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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)

20. 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