Abstract
BackgroundAssessment of 'potential intellectual ability' of children with severe intellectual disability (ID) is limited, as current tests designed for normal children do not maintain their interest. Thus a manual puzzle version of the Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices (RCPM) was devised to appeal to the attentional and sensory preferences and language limitations of children with ID. It was hypothesized that performance on the book and manual puzzle forms would not differ for typically developing children but that children with ID would perform better on the puzzle form.MethodsThe first study assessed the validity of this puzzle form of the RCPM for 76 typically developing children in a test-retest crossover design, with a 3 week interval between tests. A second study tested performance and completion rate for the puzzle form compared to the book form in a sample of 164 children with ID.ResultsIn the first study, no significant difference was found between performance on the puzzle and book forms in typically developing children, irrespective of the order of completion. The second study demonstrated a significantly higher performance and completion rate for the puzzle form compared to the book form in the ID population.ConclusionSimilar performance on book and puzzle forms of the RCPM by typically developing children suggests that both forms measure the same construct. These findings suggest that the puzzle form does not require greater cognitive ability but demands sensory-motor attention and limits distraction in children with severe ID. Thus, we suggest the puzzle form of the RCPM is a more reliable measure of the non-verbal mentation of children with severe ID than the book form.
Highlights
Assessment of 'potential intellectual ability' of children with severe intellectual disability (ID) is limited, as current tests designed for normal children do not maintain their interest
Standardized intelligence tests such as the WISC-IV are often limited in their assessment of children with severe intellectual disability (ID) who are often unable to stay on task for the lengthy administration of the test, or handle its heavy reliance on language skills [2,3,4] and lack of ability to motivate [5]
It is being utilized increasingly with children with severe ID, including those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) [5,16] in research settings to control for non-verbal mentation [13,17,18] and in educational settings to determine the level of functioning and treatment progress as part of a battery of tests [19,20]
Summary
Assessment of 'potential intellectual ability' of children with severe intellectual disability (ID) is limited, as current tests designed for normal children do not maintain their interest. We suggest that the Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices Test (RCPM [11]) is a potentially more suitable alternative to tests like the WISC as it is an untimed non-verbal measure of reasoning ability [3,12,13] This is supported by a recent study by Dawson, Soulières, Gernsbacher and Mottron [14], which showed that the WISC-III underestimates intelligence in children with ASD. The RCPM consists of 36 coloured multiple choice matrices ( colour is irrelevant to the completion of the task), organized in three increasingly complex sets [3,11,12,13,14,15] It is being utilized increasingly with children with severe ID, including those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) [5,16] in research settings to control for non-verbal mentation [13,17,18] and in educational settings to determine the level of functioning and treatment progress as part of a battery of tests [19,20]
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