A McCarthy short form for rapid screening of preschool, kindergarten, and first-grade children

Abstract

A short form of the McCarthy was developed primarily to help meet the needs for a well-normed brief instrument to be used for the rapid screening of preschool, kindergarten, and first-grade children. The proposed short form comprises 6 of the 15 tests in the General Cognitive Scale: Puzzle Solving, Word Knowledge, Numerical Memory, Verbal Fluency, Counting and Sorting, and Conceptual Grouping. The abbreviated form was specifically geared to the 3–6 year age range, although equations to convert short-form score to estimated General Cognitive Index were provided for children across the entire span of 2 1 2 to 8 1 2 years. The short form was shown to have a standard error of estimate of about 6 points and to have excellent psychometric properties in general.