Intelligent Insights on Intelligence Theories and Tests
This weeks "recent literature of interest" is now available. Click here to view or download.
http://forensicpsychologist.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-resource-master-archive-on-flynn.html
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| Developmental Psychology - Vol 46, Iss 1 Developmental Psychology publishes articles that advance knowledge and theory about human development across the life span. |
The developmental relations between conceptual and procedural knowledge: A multimethod approach.Tue, Jan 5 2010 7:15 AMby Schneider, Michael; Stern, Elsbeth Interactions between conceptual and procedural knowledge influence the development of mathematical competencies. However, after decades of research, these interrelations are still under debate, and empirical results are inconclusive. The authors point out a source of these problems. Different kinds of knowledge and competencies only show up intertwined in behavior, making it hard to measure them validly and independently of each other. A multimethod approach was used to investigate the extent of these problems. A total of 289 fifth and sixth graders' conceptual and procedural knowledge about decimal fractions was measured by 4 common hypothetical measures of each kind of knowledge. Study 1 tested whether treatments affected the 2 groups of measures in consistent ways. Study 2 assessed, across 3 measurement points, whether conceptual and procedural knowledge could be modeled as latent factors underlying the measures. The results reveal substantial problems with the validities of the measures, which might have been present but gone undetected in previous studies. A solution to these problems is essential for theoretical and practical progress in the field. The potential of the multimethod approach for this enterprise is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved) |
Developmental Psychology - Vol 46, Iss 1 | Developmental Psychology publishes articles that advance knowledge and theory about human development across the life span. Infants prefer the musical meter of their own culture: A cross-cultural comparison.Tue, Jan 5 2010 7:15 AMby Soley, Gaye; Hannon, Erin E. Infants prefer native structures such as familiar faces and languages. Music is a universal human activity containing structures that vary cross-culturally. For example, Western music has temporally regular metric structures, whereas music of the Balkans (e.g., Bulgaria, Macedonia, Turkey) can have both regular and irregular structures. We presented 4- to 8-month-old American and Turkish infants with contrasting melodies to determine whether cultural background would influence their preferences for musical meter. In Experiment 1, American infants preferred Western over Balkan meter, whereas Turkish infants, who were familiar with both Western and Balkan meters, exhibited no preference. Experiments 2 and 3 presented infants with either a Western or Balkan meter paired with an arbitrary rhythm with complex ratios not common to any musical culture. Both Turkish and American infants preferred Western and Balkan meter to an arbitrary meter. Infants' musical preferences appear to be driven by culture-specific experience and a culture-general preference for simplicity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved) |
http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/12/what-does-doodle-do-it-boosts-your.html
Kevin McGrew PhD
Educational/School Psych.
IAP (www.iapsych.com)
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http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/2009/12/good-news-for-armchair.html
Kevin McGrew PhD
Educational/School Psych.
IAP (www.iapsych.com)
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The free on-line WMF Human Cognitive Abilities (HCA) archive project was updated today. An overview of the project, with a direct link to the archive, can be found at the Woodcock-Muñoz Foundation web page (click on "Current Woodcock-Muñoz Foundation Human Cognitive Abilities Archive") . Also, an on-line PPT copy of a poster presentation I made at the 2008 (Dec) ISIR conference re: this project can be found by clicking here.
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http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2009/12/the_edison_brainmete.html
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The present study used archival data of individuals given the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities 3 rd Edition and the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement 3 rd Edition in an effort to define subtypes of LD. The sample included 526 subjects aged 6 years to 18 years old who had a diagnosis of some type of LD. Of these, 22.7% had an additional diagnosis other than LD. It was expected that subtypes similar to Rourke's classification of his nonverbal learning disorder and his basic phonological processing disorder would be found.
Portions of the battery were used in a latent class cluster analysis in order to determine group patterns of strengths and weaknesses. Using the Lo-Mendell-Rubin test, a 3 solution model was selected. These three groups showed no evidence of patterns of strengths and weaknesses. These groups were best described as a high, middle, and low group, in that the high group had scores that were universally larger than scores from the middle group, which had scores that were universally higher than the low group. The rates of individuals with comorbid disorders varied greatly between the clusters. The high group had the lowest comorbidity rates in the study, with only 6.8%. That is compared to 26.4% of the middle group and 44.8% of the low group.
These results suggest that clusters found differ more in severity rather than types of LD. Individuals with LD and comorbid disorders are more likely to have more severe deficits.
The purpose of the present study was to determine if African American and Caucasian preschool children displayed similar patterns of performance among the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) factors measured by the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, Second Edition (KABC-II). Specifically, a profile analysis was conducted to determine if African Americans and Caucasians displayed the same patterns of highs and low and scored at the same level on the KABC-II composites and subtests. Forty-nine African American (mean age = 59.14 months) and 49 Caucasian (mean age = 59.39) preschool children from a Midwestern City were included in the study and were matched on age, sex, and level of parental education. Results of a profile analysis found African American and Caucasian preschool children had a similar pattern of highs and lows and performed at the same level on the CHC broad abilities as measured by the KABC-II. Comparison of the overall mean IQ indicated no significant differences between the two groups. The overall mean difference between groups was 1.47 points, the smallest gap seen in the literature. This finding was inconsistent with previous research indicating a one standard deviation difference in IQ between African Americans and Caucasians. A profile analysis of the KABC-II subtests found the African American and Caucasian groups performed at an overall similar level, but did not show the same pattern of highs and lows. Specifically, Caucasians scored significantly higher than African Americans on the Expressive Vocabulary subtest which measures the CHC narrow ability of Lexical Knowledge.Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, neuropsychology, special education, IQ, IQ test, CHC, Cattlll -Horn-Caroll, intelligene, disseration dish, IQs Corner, profiles
Results of this study supported the KABC-II's authors' recommendation to make interpretations at the composite level. When developing hypotheses of an individual's strengths and weaknesses in narrow abilities, clinicians should be cautious when interpreting the Expressive Vocabulary subtest with African Americans. Overall, results of this study supported the use of the KABC-II with African American preschool children. When making assessment decisions, clinicians can be more confident in an unbiased assessment with the KABC-II.
Future research could further explore the CHC narrow abilities in ethnically diverse populations. Additionally, more research should be conducted with other measures of cognitive ability designed to adhere to the CHC theory, and the appropriateness of those tests with an African American population. Furthermore, future research with the KABC-II could determine if the results of the present study were replicated in other age groups.
This weeks "recent literature of interest" is now available. Click here to view or download.
The present study examined the phenotypic and genetic relationship between fluency and non-fluency-based measures of reading and mathematics performance. Participants were drawn from the Western Reserve Reading and Math Project, an ongoing longitudinal twin project of same-sex MZ and DZ twins from Ohio. The present analyses are based on tester-administered measures available from 228 twin pairs (age M = 9.86 years). Measurement models suggested that four factors represent the data, namely Decoding, Fluency, Comprehension, and Math. Subsequent quantitative genetic analyses of these latent factors suggested that a single genetic factor accounted for the covariance among these four latent factors. However, there were also unique genetic effects on Fluency and Math, independent from the common genetic factor. Thus, although there is a significant genetic overlap among different reading and math skills, there may be independent genetic sources of variation related to measures of decoding fluency and mathematics.
Results suggested a four-factor model including reading Decoding, reading Fluency, reading Comprehension, and Math. Further quantitative genetic analysis suggested that a common genetic factor is important to the covariance among phenotypically distinct latent factors (e.g., Plomin & Kovas, 2005). However, Fluency and Math factors were also influenced by unique genetic influences, independent from the general genetic factor.
Interestingly, the two factors with unique genetic in fluences are the only ones to contain measures of timed performance, or fluency. Previous work has suggested that there are large and significant effects due to heritability on measures of reading fluency (h² = .65–.67; Harlaar, Spinath, Dale, & Plomin, 2005), and mathematics fluency (h² = .63; Hart et al., 2009). It is possible that the fluency components in each of these factors are important for explaining the unique genetic effects on both.
Notably, there is no genetic overlap between the factors which contain fluency-based measures, outside of the general genetic overlap among all the latent factors. That, as well as the comparison of phenotypic models 4 and 5 in Table 3, suggests that the genetic influences of reading fluency are not the same as the genetic influences of mathematics fluency, although both are strongly independently influenced by genes.
It is also interesting to note the shared environmental overlap among all the factors. Instruction in this age-group is typically for the skills represented by these factors (e.g., Chall, 1983). This would serve to influence these processes through the shared environment, especially given that for most students in the early elementary years, academic skill exposure and learning are a function of what is taught in school. Moreover, in the case of twins, they also share the same rearing environment. This overlap is of note as it is shared between all mathematics and reading factors, suggesting that whether it is school- and/or family-level influences, there is a common environmental etiology underlying academic difficulties. This can have ramifications in how academic skill-based interventions are conceptualized.
The math literature sometimes separates math into components of computation and problem solving. Our findings in the current study and others (Petrill & Hart, 2009) suggest that the data were best represented by one latent factor. However, all measures of math are based on the Woodcock–Johnson, which may be serving to make them more similar.
Related to this issue, although the shared environmental influences on math are higher than those on reading, this difference cannot be directly tested statistically.Authors conclusion
In sum, the results suggest that there are some common genetic and environmental factors that connect reading and mathematics performance. At the same time, there also appear to be independent genetic effects for reading fluency and for mathematics. Although requiring further study, these findings may suggest that the overlap in reading and mathematics performance may be due to both genes and the shared environment whereas the discrepancy between math and reading may be genetically mediated. This has ramifications for our understanding of math and reading difficulties. Independent genetic effects may be serving to make math disability and reading disability distinct, and differentially prevalent. On the other hand, the extent to which they are comorbid in some children, common genes and environments may be affecting the outcomes.
Mental retardation (MR) has traditionally been defined as a disorder in intellectual and adaptive functioning beginning in the developmental period. Guided by a federal definition of MR described in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, it is the responsibility of each of the United States to describe eligibility guidelines for special education services. The purpose of this study was to examine eligibility guidelines for MR for the 50 states and the District of Columbia. This study examined the terms used to describe MR, the use of classification levels, the cutoff scores, and the adaptive behavior considerations for each state. In addition, this study examined guidelines for consideration of intelligence test part scores and consideration of the unreliability of IQs through consideration of the standard error of measurement (SEM) or an IQ range. As found in previous studies, results revealed great variation in the specific eligibility guidelines for MR from state to state. The greatest variation appeared to be across the adaptive behavior considerations. Approximately 20% of states (10) recommend consideration of intelligence test part scores, and approximately 39% of states (20) recommend attention to unreliability of IQs through consideration of the SEM or an IQ range.
