PREDICTABILITY OF THE ILLINOIS TEST OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC

ABILITIES ON VISUAL-MOTOR TASKS

APPROVED:

Wiii lu Major Professor

C | y U/

Minor Professor 1

*b£^por

bean "of the Graduate School

PREDICTABILITY OF THE ILLINOIS TEST OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC

ABILITIES ON VISUAL-MOTOR TASKS

THESIS

Presented to the Graduate Council of the

North Texas State University in Partial

Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of

MASTER OF SCIENCE

By

Nancy Jane Earls Taylor, B. S,

Denton, Texas

May, 1969

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page' LIST OF TABLES iv

Chapter

I. INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE . . . . 1

II. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 24

III. RESULTS 36

IV. DISCUSSION 44

BIBLIOGRAPHY 48

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

I. Correlation Coefficients of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Subtests with Other Subtests 39

II. Pearson r and .95 Confidence Interval of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children with Other Subtests 41

III. Correlation Coefficients of Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities Subtests with the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception 42

IV. Pearson r and .95 Confidence Interval of Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities Subtests and Frostig Develop-xnental Test of Visual Perception Subtests 42

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Language has often been described in terms of its

receptive and expressive aspects. Mykelbust (15) and McCarthy

(14) use the term "receptive language" to describe the ability

to comprehend and attach meaning to linguistic symbols

expressed by others. "Expressive language" involves the

expression to others of ideas, emotions, or desires through

the use of linguistic symbols.

The development of language follows a sequential pattern

which has been determined phylogentically, ontogentically,

neurologically and psychologically (15, p. 2). Ferrier (9)

states that the child's language develops in the following

general manner: ". . .he learns to listen to the language

and understand it before he learns to express ideas through

spoken language; he expresses ideas in spoken language before

he learns the written language of his culture." Although

children may acquire language skills at different ages, they

all seem to follow the same general pattern described by

Ferrier.

Several models of the linguistic process have been con-

structed. These conceptual models allow a better under-

standing of visual-motor tasks as they relate to the concept

of language development. Osgood (17, p. 96) postulates that

any model that proposes to incorporate language behavior must

take into consideration the symbolic processes, perceptual

integration, and the motor skill integration which are

particularly important in language behavior. Osgood describes

his model of language as having three processes and three

levels of organization between the stimulus and the response.

The first process is called decoding, which encompasses the

total process whereby physical energies in the environment

are interpreted by an organism. The second process is called

encoding, during which the intentional selection of meaningful

units, their grammatical integration and expression by the

motor pathways is achieved. The third process, the associ-

ative process, establishes the link between sensory and motor

integrations as wholes. The three levels of organization

apply to all three processes. Three levels of organization

described by Osgood are as follows: projection, integration,

and representation. The projection level of organization

relates both the receptor and the muscle events to the brain

by the neural mechanisms. It involves the reflexes. The

integration level of organization organizes and sequences

both the incoming and outgoing neural events. The integrational

level of organization has two divisions. The integrations

are evocative in nature when the central pattern is suffici-

ently strong to complete itself once it is initiated. An

example of this is the formation of all skill components

such as the grasping, pointing, flexing movements of the

fingers; the reaching, leaning, turning movements of object

orientation; the syllables of spoken language. The inte-

gration form under conditions of either lower frequency or

lesser temporal continguity may be merely predictive in

nature in that the occurrences of some of the central

correlates of a pattern merely serve to "tune up" the others

with which they have been associated. An example of this is

demonstrated when one sees a falling object, one becomes

set for the noise of its striking, even though the noise "

level of the environment is above that of the noise produced

by the falling object (17, p. 99). The representation or

cognitive level of organization involves the termination of

the decoding operations and the initiation of the encoding

operations.

Wepman, Jones, Bock and Pelt (24) have postulated a

model which has some similarities to Osgood's model. The

model of Wepman et al. has three levels of function:

conceptual, perceptual, and reflexive. Wepman, et al.

regarded the oversimplified division of sensory input

leading directly to motor output as failing to express the

essential integrative process of language formulation. They

state that

. . . in its place the present concept shows a triad of events in which modality-bound input leads to integration and symbol formulation which in turn leads to modality-bound motor output . . .

the agnosias and apraxias are transmissive dis-orders, nonsymbolic in nature, bound by the pathways of reception and expression.

The model stresses a modality-bound separation of trans-

mission at every level for both input and output, the important

role of recall in all phases of perceptual and conceptual

language, as well as the role of both internal and external

feedback. Like the Osgood model, it distinguishes a meaning

or symbolic level from a level of more automatic sequencing

of language materials, and these in turn from sensory and

motor input and output. It also implies a separation of

decoding from encoding processes. It includes integration

at all levels, as well as imitation, and includes the

function of memory. One way in which their model is

distinguished from Osgood's is that it is not assumed to be

completely general in its application, but limited to aphasia.

McCarthy and Kirk (13) developed a clinical model

similar to Osgood's model. They expanded Osgood's model to

encompass four channels of communication, two levels of

organization and three psycholinguistic processes. The model

developed by McCarthy and Kirk has considerable commonality

with the Osgood model, except for the integrative level.

Osgood's evocative process does not allow for memory com-

ponent, whereas the model developed by McCarthy and Kirk does.

In this respect, the automatic-sequential level resembles

the concepts in the Wepman et al. model.

A model presented by Fairbanks (18, p. 103) has similar

channels of communication and psycholinguistic processes to

those of Osgood and McCarthy and Kirk. The encoding and

decoding channels of communication are employed in Fairbanks'

model while the auditory and vocal psycholinguistic processes

are used. The message begins at the brain of the first speaker

and is produced by the speech mechanisms of the first speaker

then is received in the ear of the second speaker. The

second speaker's message follows the same pattern as did the

first speaker's message, and is received by the ear of the'

first speaker and is interpreted by the brain of the first

speaker. Fairbanks' model separates three modes of feedback

which are the proprioceptive, the tactual, and the auditory.

These feedbacks are utilized by the comparator, which serves

the function of comparing output with input in order to derive

an error signal. When an error in the output is made, it is

noted by the compartor and is corrected by the mixer.

The models of the linguistic process which have been

discussed employ sensory modalities for the decoding, encoding

and feedback processes. One of the sensory processes used

is vision. Brisbane (4, p. 86) states that vision is the

least developed sense at birth; however, within a week the

child becomes increasingly aware of his surroundings. The

eyes begin to work together. Wunderlich (25) states that the

child settles on the eye position which serves him best in

his particular environment after experimenting with a

variety of eye postures and sets for several months after

birth.

The development of cortical control over eye-limb

coordination proceeds in a cephalocaudal pattern, that is

from head to tail (26). The efficiency of eye-arm coordi-

nation and eye-hand coordination reverses with the development

of the infant. Eye-palm coordination preceded eye-finger

coordination. Eye-finger flexion coordination precedes eye-

finger tension coordination.

Wunderlich (25) states that motor differentiation begins

from a gross uncoordinated movement and terminates in a fine

isolated, well-coordinated motor response. The development

occurs from proximal to distal points. An infant between

sixteen and twenty weeks old illustrates the proximal phase

of arm development by his thrusting his arm awkwardly toward

his target. The arms seem to move predominantly from the

shoulder and both arms move together rather than moving

independently.

Vernon (21) notes that by the age of three or four,

most children can correctly name familiar objects when they

are depicted in simple drawings. However, they often do not

grasp what the people are doing in a picture of scenes and

human activities. Children,of two can discriminate between

simple shapes, such as a square, a circle, and a triangle,

as reported by Vernon (21), but they cannot reproduce or

correctly copy these forms until they are about four or five

years old.

The eyes and hands are the most important tools for

learning (10, p. 23). The eye registers impressions which

are sent to the brain; the impulses to act on these im-

pressions are sent to the muscles of the hands. At about

the age of six months, the eyes and hands gradually begin to

come into coordination.

There seem to be some basic sensory-motor skills which

are closely related to early verbal learning. Staat (20,

p. 424) states that "grasping a pencil or crayon properly

and making marks in various directions involves sensory-

motor skills that are basic to the ease with which the child

will learn to write." Accurate visual-motor coordination

enables the child to learn to read, write, spell, and under-

take any other work involving the accurate recognition and

reproduction of visual symbols.

Statement of the Problem

The purpose of this study was to determine whether or

not individual scores derived by the Illinois Test of

Psycholinguistic Abilities can be used as predictors of

performance on visual motor tasks of the Wechsler Intelligence

Scale for Children and the Frostig Developmental Test of

Visual Perception for a child who has learning problems.

These three well-known tests, the Illinois Test of Psycho-

linguistic Abilities, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for

8

Children and the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual

Perception, are commonly used to assess problems of indi-

viduals with learning problems. Each test had its peculiar

purpose: the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities'is

most frequently used to assess various levels of language

function and is commonly administered in speech clinics as a

means of evaluating the general level of language achievement

of young children. The Frostig Developmental Test of Visual

Perception is a test of reading skill commonly used to

evaluate various language skills which are appropriate to the

reading process. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children

is a tool used by psychologists to assess intelligence as it

has been defined by the test designers. Whatever it does

measure, it is, at least, highly related with success in

school (23).

Each of these three widely used tests contains at least

one subtest which has been included to evaluate the subject's

visual motor skills. Each test is organized to provide

developmental level of information related to chronological

age.

The appraisal of children with learning disabilities

frequently involves the administration of all three of these

tests, a process requiring more than three hours. Casual

inspection of the three tests indicates that such multiple

testing may be a duplication of effort. Since the Illinois

Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities is a routinely used tool

.of speech clinicians, it would be helpful if a generalization

could be made about the possible relation between the visual

motor subtest scores of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic

Abilities and the similar visual motor subtest scores of the

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children and the Frostig

Developmental Test of Visual Perception. If a high corre-

lation exists between the similar subtest items on the other

two tests, and if such a relationship exists between the

subtest scores and the subject's overall scores, these sub-

tests may provide a very useful predictor of what individual

subjects can be expected to achieve with any of the three

tools.

Review of the Literature

There have been no publications of research conducted

which compare the performance on visual motor tasks, as

measured by the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities,

t h e Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception and the

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. One explanation

for the lack of such published research may be due to the

fact that the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception

and the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities are

relatively recently published tests. The Frostig Develop-,

mental Test of Visual Perception was published in 1963; the

Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities was published

in 1961.

10

Interest in multiple-disciplinary approaches to learning

difficulties is also a rather recent innovation. Numerous

studies have been conducted using one of the three tests in

question in a special relationship. Bilovshy and Share (2)

investigated the performance of twenty-four noninstitution-

alized children with Down's Syndrome on the Illinois Test of

Psycholinguistic Abilities. They reported that these children

were most deficient in their ability to deal with nonmeaningful

symbols and the retention of these symbols either on the

short term or long term basis was minimal. Bilovshy and

Share (2) reported that the children did relatively well on

the representational level when compared to their performances

on the automatic-sequential level. Their performances on the

auditory modality were deficient; however, whenever the mode

of reception was visual, or whenever the mode of expression

was motor, the children performed well above their language

norms.

Kass (12) examined some psychologistic correlations of

reading disability with the Illinois Jest of Psycholinguistic

Abilities, a visual automatic test, a maze test, a memory for

designs test, and perceptual speed test. These tests were

given to twenty-one elementary school children from the

school of Decatur, Illinois., The ages of the children ranged

from seven years no months to nine years eleven months; the

children were in the second, third and fourth grades. The

results indicated that the children were deficient on the

11

following tests: sound blending, maze, memory for design and

perceptual speed and the visual automatic subtest of the

Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities. The children

seemed to have problems at the integrational level of the

psycholinguistic functioning. Kass concluded that the Illinois

Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities, as a diagnostic instru-

ment, seemed to be valuable in some respects and not in

others. The auditory-vocal association, auditory-vocal

sequencing and the visual-motor sequencing subtests of the

Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities seemed to be best ,

in denoting those children who had not learned to read after

at least one year in school, although they had normal

intelligence.

The Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities was

administered by Dickson (8) to ten children with functional

articulation defects judged to be language delayed and ten'

children with articulation defects judged not to be language

delayed. The language-delayed group obtained significantly

lower scores on the total test and on eight out of the nine

subtests than the nonlanguage-delayed group. The raw scores

of the language-delayed group were lower than the reported

language age norms for the total test and the nine subtests,

while the raw scores of the nonlanguage-delayed group were

equal to or less than the reported norms for the total test

and eight out of the nine subtests.

12

Butt (5) investigated the relationship between speech,

language and reading abilities of fifty-nine third-grade

children with normal intelligence. The children were divided

into three groups according to their articulation ability.

They were given the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Illinois

Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities, and the Gates-MacGintie

Reading Test. Although the group with normal articulation

did score higher on the Gates-MacGintie Reading Test and on

the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities than did the

deviant articulation groups, Butt found no significant

differences among the three groups.

Ferrier (9) also conducted a study designed to evaluate

the psycholinguistic abilities of children who were considered

to have functional articulation defects. He used fourty

elementary school children who were between the ages of six

years seven months and eight years seven months. The

referring speech therapist judged these children to have

moderately severe articulation problems. The Tempiin-Darley

176 Item Test of Articulation and the Illinois Test of

Psycholinguistic Abilities were administered. On the Illinois

Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities, Ferrier found that the

children performed inadequately on the automatic sequential

and the representational levels of psycholinguistic ability.

Vocal encoding was the weakest subtest in the representational

level.. There was a tendency toward the reduction of verbali-

zation by the children who had severe articulation problems;

13

this may have been a factor which explained the lowered test

scores on this subtest beyond what might have been earned by

an equally able but more vocal group of children. Defective

articulation seemed to the researcher to affect vocal encoding

performance by reducing the total amount of verbalization.

Studies have been conducted which reported the per-

formance of culturally deprived children on the Illinois Test

of Psycholinguistic Abilities. Weaver and Weaver (22)

postulated that the culturally deprived children would make

significantly lower scores on the subtests involving the

auditory and vocal channels; they believed that the culturally

deprived children would earn significantly lower language age

scores than their mental ages. The sixty-one children were

selected from members of a project for Early Training for

Culturally Deprived Children. The authors did not state any

further explanation of the project for Early Training for

Culturally Deprived Children. They reported a generally

decreasing trend of scores in the following order: association,

sequencing, decoding, encoding, and automatic. The children's

representational level exceeded their automatic-sequential

level of organization. The following modalities, as used on

the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities, are in

decreasing order of utilization by the culturally deprived

children: visual, motor, vocal, and auditory. Weaver and

Weaver noted that the culturally deprived children seemed to

exhibit a patterning of their scores which was similar to the

14

pattern exhibited by the educable and trainable mentally

retarded children. Weaver and Weaver discussed studies

conducted by Donovan, Gens, Hudson, Schlanger, Schlanger and

Gottsleben and Sirkin and Lyons, who all generally concluded

that there was a general increase in language disturbance as

the intelligence quotient decreased. Weaver and Weaver also

discussed research reported by.Smith, who stated that his

study showed a gain in language abilities for educable

mentally retarded children who had been exposed to an

experimental language development program. Weaver and

Weaver's conclusions were made on the basis of the previous

studies they discussed.

Johnson (11) compared the scores earned by a group of

residential school deaf children and the standardization

sample of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities on

four selected subtests. The twenty-eight children from six

to nine years of age had IQ's ranging from 80 to 120, as

measured by the Columbia Mental Maturity Scale, and all had

a hearing loss of 60 db in the better ear and were diagnosed

as being deaf prior to one year of age. The visual decoding,

motor decoding, visual-motor sequencing, and the visual-motor

association subtests were given. Johnson found no significant

differences between the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic

Abilities's sample group and the six year olds on any of the

four subtests. There was significant difference between the

deaf and the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities's

15

sample group above the six-year level on the visual-motor

sequencing subtest. Significant differences were also found

between the two groups on all of the subtests at the 8-6 and

the 9-0 chronological age level. Johnson concluded that the

linguistic deficit in the deaf increases with age compared to

the normal. Johnson also concluded that "the deaf appear

to solve their verbal problems in a different manner than

hearing children do."

The Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception has

been compared with other well-known tests. Olson (16) com-

pared the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception

with the California Achievement Test, 1963 Revision of the

California Short-Form Test of Mental Maturity, the Gates

Advanced Primary Reading Test, Hearing Sounds in Words Test,

an<^ Visual Memory of Words Test from the Durrell Analysis of

Reading Difficulty Test. The purpose of this study was to

determine the predictive value of the Frostig Developmental

Test of Visual Perception for general achievement in the

second grade and the relationship between the Frostig test

and the specific reading abilities. Seventy-one second-grade

children with normal intelligence were given the battery of

tests. Olson concluded from the results that the Frostig

Developmental Test of Visual Perception had some value as a

predictor of general achievement in the second grade but does

not predict as well as the Hearing Sounds in. Words, Visual

Memory for Words, reversible words in context, and synthesizing

16

words in context or the Gates Paragraph .Reading and Word

Recognition Tests. However, all four subtests of the Frostig .

Developmental Test of Visual Perception, except from con-

stancy, showed significant relationships with specific reading

abilities.

Culbertson and Gunn (7) compared the Bender Gestalt Test

and the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception with

emotionally disturbed, schizophrenic, retarded and organic

brain-damaged children, in hopes of finding the relationship

between the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception

and the Bender Gestalt in predicting visual-motor skills of

abnormal clinical groups of children. Of the sixty-five

children tested, sixteen were emotionally disturbed, sixteen

were schizophrenic, eighteen were mentally retarded and

fifteen had organic brain syndrome. The children were

selected from the Mendota State Hospital and the Madison .

Public School System of Wisconsin. The children's ages

ranged from seven years five months to twelve years five

months. The tests were individually administered to the

children. Culbertson and Gunn reported a significant corre-

lation between the two tests and the child's intelligence.

The correlation between the Frostig Developmental Test of

Visual Perception and the Bender Gestalt Test of .52 was

found in the schizophrenic and emotionally disturbed group of

children, which suggests that both tests are closely related

and probably tap many of the same visual-perceptual variables.

17

Culbertson and Gunn noted that there was a consistency of

performance on both tests with the groups whose prominent

difficulty is emotional disturbance, while variable performance

on those visual-motor tasks was found in children whose

intelligence or neurological system was impaired. Corre-

lations relating the total Bender Gestalt scores with each of

the five subtests scores of the Frostig Developmental Test of

Visual Perception with all of the children suggests that

subtest IV and V of the Frostig are significantly related to

the Bender Gestalt scores in this population, while none of

the other three subtests were significantly related.

Culbertson and Gunn concluded that the Frostig Developmental

Test of Visual Perception was a useful instrument in diag-

nostic testing when used as a check or compliment to the

Bender Gestalt Test.

Allen, Haupt, and Jones (1) investigated the contri-

butions of perceptual skills to intellectual functioning in

a retarded population by comparing the scores of the Frostig

Developmental Test of Visual Perception and the Wechsler

Intelligence Scale for Children. Sixty-five educable

retarded children attending public schools were given the

tests. Twenty of the children who obtained high perceptual

quotient scores comprised the high-perceiver group, since

they showed no marked impairment of perceptual skill, and

twenty children who did not obtain high perceptual quotient

scores comprised the low-perceiver group, for they showed

. 18

significant impairment of perceptual skill. The high-

perceiver group performed with significantly greater

proficiency on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children

than did the low-perceiver group, and the high-perceiver

group were consistently superior to the low-perceiving group

in the verbal skills. Allen, Haupt, and Jones concluded that

the retarded children with apparently intact perceptual

abilities are generally more efficient than the retarded

children with impaired perceptual development, as measured by

the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children performance

subtests. Those children with apparently intact perceptual

abilities seem to receive more meaningful organization of the

environment and have better discrimination of the important

items from the irrelevant facets of the perceptual world than

those children whose perceptual development seems to be

impaired.

Black and Davis (3) investigated the relationship

between intelligence and sensorimotor proficiency in 245

mentally retarded children. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale

for Children, Finger Localization Test, and Fingertip-Symbol

Recognition Test were given to the children. Black and Davis

found no significant relationship between the intelligence

and the fingertip-symbol recognition tasks.

Chang and Chang (6) investigated the relationship of

visual-motor skills and reading achievement in second and

third grade students of superior ability. The children were

19

from the University Elementary School at the University of

Hawaii. The children were given the Bender Gestalt Test and

the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. Chang and

Chang found that the scores from these tests were signifi-

cantly related to the second grade reading level but not to

the third grade reading level. It was concluded that

maturation of visual-motor skills of superior students is

accelerated and the chronology of the relationship between

visual-motor development and reading skill is advanced.

Robeck (19) studied the subtest patterning on the Wechsler

Intelligence Scale for Children of thirty-six children who

were from six years eleven months to thirteen years nine

months old and who had reading problems. The full-scale

intelligence quotients ranged from 85 to 136. Robeck found,

in contrast with the standardization population, that the

children scored significantly higher on the subtests of com-

prehension, block design, comparison, picture completion,

vocabulary, and object assembly; however, on the picture

arrangement, digit span, arithmetic, information and coding,

the children scored below the group used in the test's

standardization.

As noted from the models of the language process, there

seem to be some basic sensory-motor skills which are closely

related to the acquisition of language. These three tests

were designed to measure some of those basic sensory-motor

skills. This study was designed to investigate whether or

20

not selected items from the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic

Abilities could be used to predict the performance on

similar test items from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for

Children or the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Per-

ception for children who have learning problems. Although no

research has been published which compares the performance on

visual-motor tasks as measured by the Illinois Test of

Psycholinguistic Abilities, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for

Children and the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual

Perception, numerous studies have been conducted using one of

the three tests with other tests. In general, the literature

reviewed reveals that the three tests seem to be of some

value in evaluating, and predicting learning ability, and

correlating with other tests used in a given study of a

selected population.

CHAPTER BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Allen, Robert M., Thomas D. Haupt, and R. Wayne Jones, "Visual-Perceptual Abilities and Intelligence in Mental Retardates," Journal of Clinical Psychology, XXI (July, 1965), 299-300.

2. Bilovshy, David and Jack Share, "The ITPA and Down's Syndrome: An Exploratory Study," American Journal of Mental Deficiency, LXX (July, 19657" 78-82.

3. Black, Allan H. and Leo J. Davis, Jr., "Relationship Between Intelligence and Sensori-motor Proficiency in Retardates," American Journal of Mental Deficiency, LXXI (July, 1966), 55-59.

4. Brisban, Holly E. and Audrey Palm Riker, The Developing Child, Peoria, Illinois, Charles A. Bennett Co., Inc., 1965.

5. Butt, Francis, "The Relationship of Language and Articu-lation Ability to Reading Ability," unpublished master's thesis, Department of Speech and Drama, North Texas State University, Denton, Texas, 1968.

6. Chang, Thomas M. C. and Vivian A. C. Chang, "Relation of Visual-Motor Skills and Reading Achievement in Primary-Grade Pupils of Superior Ability," Perceptual and Motor Skills, XXIV (February, 1967), 51-53.

7. Culbertson, Frances M. and Robert C. Gunn, "Comparison of the Bender-Gestalt Test and Frostig Test in Several Clinical Groups of Children," Journal of Clinical Psychology, XXII (October, 1966), 439.

8. Dickson, Stanley, "Clinical Judgement of Language Delay and ITPA Measurements," Journal of Communication Dis-orders , I (January, 1967), 35-40.

9. Ferrier, E. E., "An Investigation of the ITPA Performance of Children with Functional Defects of Articulation," Exceptional Children,' XXXII "(May, 1966) , 625-628.

10. Gesell, Arnold, Frances L. Ilg, and Glenna E. Bullis, Vision: Its Development in Infant and Child, New York, Paul B. Hoeber, Inc., 1950.

22

11. Johnson, Glen Brooks, "A Comparison of Scores Earned by Certain Groups of Residential School Deaf Children and the Standardization Sample of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities on Four Selected Subtests," unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Oregon, 1966, as abstracted in Dissertation Abstracts, XXVII (May, 1967), 3723-3724a.

12. Kass, Corrine, E., "Psycholinguistic Disabilities of Children with Reading Problems," Exceptional Children, XXXIII (April, 1966), 533-539.

13. Kirk, Samuel A. and James McCarthy, "The Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities—An Approach to Differential Diagnosis," American Journal of Mental Deficiency, LXVI (November, 1961), 399-412.

14. McCarthy, D., "Language Development in Children," Manual of Child Psychology, edited by L. Carmicheal, New York, Wiley, 1954.

15. Myklebust, Helmer R., Development and Disorders of Written Language, New York, Grune & Stratton, 1965.

16. Olson, Arthur V. , "Relation of Achievement Test Scores and Specific Reading Abilities to the Frostig Develop-mental Test of Visual Perception," Perceptual and Motor Skills, XX (November, 1966), 179-184.

17. Osgood, Charles E. and Thomas A. Sebeck, editors, Psycholinguistics: A Survey of Theory and Research Problems, Report of the 1953 Summer Seminar Sponsored by the Committee on Linguistic and Psychology of the Social Science Research Council, Baltimore, Waverly Press, Inc., 1954.

18. and Murray S. Miron, editors, Approaches to the Study of Aphasia, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1963.

19. Robeck, Mildred C., "Subtest Patterning of Problem Readers on the v ' J I S C , " California Journal of Educational Research, XI (May, 1960), 110-115.

20. Staats, Arthur W., Learning, Language and Cognition: Theory, Research and Method for the Study of Human Behavior and its Development, New York, Holt, Rinhart & Winston, Inc., 1967.

23

21. Vernon, M. D., "The Development of Visual-Perception in Children," Education, LXXVIII (May, 1958), 547-549.

22. Weaver, S. Joseph and Ann Weaver, "Psycholinguistic Abilities of Culturally Deprived Negro Children," American Journal of Mental Deficiency, LXXII {September, 1967), 190-197.

23. Wechsler, David, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, New York, The Psychological Corporation, 1949.

24. Wepman, J. M., L. V. Jones, R. B. Bock, and D. Van Pelt, "Studies in Aphasia," Journe." of Speech and Hearing Disorders, XXV (November, l"S60"j 32 3-332.

25. Wunderlich, Ray C., "Learning Disorders," Physical Therapy, XLVII (August, 1967), 700-708.

26. Zafora, E., "Observations on the Evolution and Neuro-physiology of Eye-Limbs Coordination," Opthalmologica, CXXXVIII (March, 1959), 241-254.

CHAPTER II

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The purpose of this study is to determine whether or not

scores derived from the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic

Abilities can be used reliably as predictors of performance

on visual motor tasks of the Frostig Developmental Test of

Visual Perception and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for

Children for a child who has learning problems. The purpose

of this study is to ascertain whether similar visual motor

processes are being measured by the visual motor tasks of the

three tests. If the tests do measure the same process, then

the time involved in diagnostic testing of children who have

learning problems can be reduced by eliminating those sections

of the tests which are redundant, without sacrificing any

information which would be obtained from using all of the

tests. Also, if a high correlation exists between the similar

subtest items on the other two tests and if such a relation-

ship exists between the subtest scores and the subject's

overall scores, these subtests may provide a very useful

predictor of what individual subjects can be expected to

achieve with any of the three tools.

OA

25

Procedure

From the Pupil Appraisal Center of North Texas files

the test scores of children referred for general learning

disabilities were obtained. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale

for Children was administered by a staff psychologist or a

doctoral student in counselling of North Texas State University.

Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception was

administered by a Pupil Appraisal Center staff reading

specialist or a North Texas State University doctoral student.

The Illinois Test of PsychoUnguistic Abilities was adminis-

tered by a supervised graduate assistant in the area of speech

and hearing therapy. All of the tests were given individually

and were part of the initial evaluation of the child.

Subjects

The thirty children used in this study were selected

from the students referred to the Pupil Appraisal Center of

North Texas for evaluation of their learning disabilities.

Those children selected met two criteria: they were within -

an age range of three to nine years' and they had the three

tests administered to them during their initial diagnostic

evaluation. The ages of the children ranged from six years

nine months to nine years three months, with a mean of eight

years three months and a standard deviation of two years six

months. The children's intelligence quotients were within

the normal range, as measured by the Wechsler Intelligence

26

Scale for Children; they had normal hearing acuity and no

physical handicaps which would impair their ability to learn

in a regular public school classroom. The children were

enrolled in the public schools of Denton County, Texas, and

they were referred from regular classrooms.

The Pupil Appraisal Center provides diagnostic and

therapeutic services for children who manifest reading dif-

ficulties, personal adjustment problems or speech and hearing

problems. The Pupil Appraisal Center serves those children

living and attending a school in Denton County, Texas.

The Illinois Test of PsychoUnguistic Abilities, the

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children and the Frostig

Developmental Test of Visual Perception are three well-known

tests which are commonly used to assess the abilities of

children with learning problems. Each test has its particular

stated purpose and design.

Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception

The Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception (3)-,

developed by Marianne Frostig, was published in 1964. The

Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception attempts to

measure five operationally defined perceptual skills. Frostig

(4, p. 464) notes that Thurston, Wedell, and Cruickshank

have stated that eye-hand coordination, figure-ground per-

ception, form constancy, spatial relationships, and position

in space appear to develop relatively independently of each

other. Frostig included these five visual perceptual skills

27

because these five skills seemed to be the most important of

all possible ones for school performance.

The Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception has

five subtests: eye-hand coordination, figure-ground, con-

stancy of shape, position in space, and spatial relationships.

For this study Test I and Test V were used. Test I is an

eye-hand coordination test. The term eye-nand coordination,

as used by Frostig, means "the ability to coordinate vision

with movements of the body or with movements of a part or

parts of the body" (1, p. 16). This test entails eye-hand

coordination involved in the drawing of a continuous straight,

curved, or angled line between boundaries of various widths,

or from one point to another point without guide lines. Test

V is concerned with spatial relationships. Frostig indicates

that the ability of an observer to perceive the position of

two or more objects in relation to himself and in relation

to each other is involved in spatial relationships (1, p. 74).

Test V requires the child to copy a design, using dots as

guidelines. This subtest measures the child's ability to

analyze simple forms and patterns.

Frostig suggests that the Developmental Test of Visual

Perception can be used as a screening device for nursery

school, kindergartens, and first grade children, or as a

clinical evaluation instrument for older children who have

learning difficulties. The test can be administered to a

group or to an individual by a person who has had proper

28

training in its use. As a group te'st, it requires less than

an hour to give; as an individual test, it takes from thirty

to forty-five minutes to give.

The 1961 standardization of the Frostig Developmental

Test of Visual Perception is based on the responses of 2116

children whose ages ranged from three to nine years. The

children were divided by ages into groups of one-half year;

there were at least 107 children in each one-half-year group.

Although the researchers tried to obtain a stratified socio-

economic sample, the sample of Southern California children

tended to be in the middle class.

The perceptual age level for each subtest was defined in

terms of performance of the average child in the corres-

ponding age group. The perceptual age divided by the chrono-

logical ages times ten and adjusted to the nearest whole

number yields the scale score. The perceptual quotient is

obtained from the sum of the subtest scores after correction

for age variation has been made.

For a reliability study, Frostig administered the test

individually to fifty children with learning difficulties.

The Pearson product-moment coefficient or the retest

reliability was .98. In another reliability study, Frostig

recorded the test-retest reliability estimate to be .80 on a

group of thirty-five first graders and thirty-seven second

graders.

29

Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities

The Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities was

published in 1961 by McCarthy and Kirk (6). The test was

designed to evaluate specific aspects of language as they re-

late to the developmental progress of children between the

ages of two and one-half and nine years of age. The test is

based on a modified form of a theoretical model which was

formulated by Osgood (12) and described in Chapter I.

The Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities has nine

subtests. There are two subtests for the three processes on

the representational level and three subtests on the automatic-

sequential level. The subtests are as follows: auditory

decoding, visual decoding, auditory-vocal association, visual-

motor association, vocal encoding, motor encoding, auditory-

vocal automatic, auditory-vocal sequencing, and visual-motor

sequencing. For this study only the scores from the total

test performance, the visual-motor association subtest and

the visual-motor sequencing subtest were used. In the visual-

motor association subtest the child is presented with a single

stimulus picture and a set of four pictures. The child is

to select the one picture from the set of four which most

meaningfully is related to the stimulus picture. The subtest

assesses the ability to relate meaningful visual symbols.

The visual-motor sequencing is similar to the auditory-

vocal sequential except the child is required to reproduce

a sequential picture set or a geometrical design which was

30

previously presented. The purpose of this test is to assess

the child's ability to reproduce a sequence of visual stimuli

from memory.

The test was individually administered to each child.

The examiner's manual contains tables which supply language-

age norms and standard scores for the raw scores obtained.

The Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities was

standardized on 1100 children who were randomly selected from

the school list from Decatur, Illinois. Several criteria for

selection were established: the test population represented

three occupational groups as classified by the 1950 United

States census; intelligence scores ranged between 80 and 120

on the Stanford Binet; no Negroes were included, nor were

children who had sensory defects or any physical handicaps;

the preschool children had not attended nursery school.

Seven hundred children met the criteria. These children were

between the ages of two years and nine years of age. The

children were divided into fourteen groups by ages, placing

them in groups of one-half year intervals. The same number

of boys and girls were in the total group.

Reliability tests were conducted. The test-retest

reliability was measured with a group of six and six-and-

one-half-year-old children. The correlation for the total

score was .70, while the correlation for the nine subtests

ranged from .37 to .79. The visual-motor sequencing subtest

had a correlation of .18, while the correlation of the visual-

31

motor association subtest was .34. These were minimal esti-

mates, according to the authors, and they noted that the

stability was this good or better. The full-range stability^

coefficient estimates were statistically derived; the range

of these estimates was from .73 to .96 for the nine subtests,

with a .86 for the visual-motor sequencing subtest and a .74

for the visual-motor association subtest, while the estimate

for the total test was .97 (7, p. 33). Because of its

recency and uniqueness, a limited amount of validity data is

available on the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities;

however, McCarthy and Kirk's investigation of the contents

of the test showed that the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic

Abilities did seem to indicate that the test does measure the

child's language ability (7, p. 42). A range of .82 to .95,

indicating the intercorrelations of each subtest with the

total score, seems to indicate that the relationship of each

subtest to the total ability being measured. The Illinois

Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities total test score was found

to correlate with the mental age at .95 and with chronological

age at .94 (7, p. 42).

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (13),

developed by Wechsler, was published in 1949. The test is

generally used by psychologists to measure the intelligence

of children.

. 32

The test has two parts, verbal tests and performance

tests. The general practice is to give five verbal and five

performance tests, although six verbal and six performance

tests are provided. These extra two tests are given for

various statistical, clinical and administrative reasons, as

described in Chapter I of the examiner's manual (14, p. 19).

By comparing each child's test score with the scores

earned by individuals of the same age, intelligence quotients

are derived. Raw scores and scale scores can be obtained on

this test. The verbal score is secured by adding the five

scaled scores of the five verbal tests which have been

administered; likewise, the performance score is computed by

adding the five performance scaled scores which have been

given. The full-scaled score is the sum of the verbal score

and the performance score; these three scaled scores can be

converted into intelligence quotients by the use of the

tables provided in the manual.

The subtests on the verbal section are as follows:

information, comprehension, arithmetic, similarities and

vocabulary; the performance subtests are as follows: picture

completion, picture arrangement, block design, object

assembly and coding. For this study, only the last three

performance subtests were used. The block design subtest

requires the analysis and reproduction of abstract designs;

it involves visual-motor perception and coordination. The

object assembly subtest requires the seeing of relationships

33

of parts to the whole in a familiar configuration along with

a critical appraisal of small details. Visual perception and

visual-motor integration are involved in the execution of

this subtest. The coding subtest assesses the ability to

learn an unfamiliar task, and it requires speed of visual-

motor reaction and the association of symbols.

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children was stan-

dardized on 2200 children. There were 100 boys and 100 girls

at each age from five through fifteen years. The children

were selected on the basis of their being able to meet

certain requirements based on the United States Census Bureau

data for 1940. The states were divided into four geographical

areas, which were represented on a percentage basis. The•

urbal and rural areas were proportionately represented in the

sample. The children's fathers were distributed according

to their occupational classification similarly to all employed

white males.

The interrelationships among the twelve tests of the

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children were computed. Each

subtest was significantly correlated with the verbal score,

the performance score and the full-scale score.

The scores from the subtests related to visual-motor

tasks from each of the three tests were recorded. These

scores were computed to determine the relationship among the

visual-motor subtests scores of the Illinois Test of Psycho-

linguistic Abilities and the similar visual-motor subtests

34

scores of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children and

the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception. A

further computation was made to verify the presence of a

significant correlation among the correlation coefficients.

CHAPTER BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Frostig, Marianne and David Home, The Frostig Program for the Development of Visual Perception, Chicago, Illinois, Follett Publishing Co., 1964.

2. , Welty Lefever, and John R. B. Whittlesey, Developmental Test of Visual Perception, Palo Alto, California, Consulting Psychologists Press, 1963.

3. , Phyllis Maslow, Welty Lefever, John R. B. Whittlesey, The Marianne Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception 1963 Standardization, Palo Alto, California, Consulting Psychologists Press, 1966.

4. McCarthy, James J. and Samuel A. Kirk, The Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities, Urbana, Illinois, University of Illinois, 1961.

5. , The Construction, Standardization, and Statistical Characteristics of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities, Urbana, Illinois, University of Illinois, 1963.

6. Osgood, Charles E. and Thomas A. Sebeck, editors, Psycholinguistics: A Survey of Theory and Research Problems, Report of the 1953 Summer Seminar Sponsored by the Committee on Linguistic and Psychology of the Social Science Research Council, Baltimore, Waverly Press, Inc., 1954.

7. Wechsler, David, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, New York, The Psychological Corporation, 1949.

8. , Examiner's Manual for the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, New York, The Psycho-logical Corporation, 1949.

CHAPTER III

RESULTS

The results of selected subtests related to visual-

motor tasks from the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic

Abilities were compared with the results of selected visual-

motor subtests from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for

Children and the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Per-

ception. The visual-motor association and the visual-motor

sequencing subtests and the total test score from the

Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities were used,

while the eye-hand coordination, the spatial relationships

subtests and the total test score of the Frostig Developmental

Test of Visual Perception were used. The block design,

object assembly, and coding subtests and the performance

scaled score were used from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale

for Children.

The scaled scores for the Wechsler Intelligence Scale

for Children subtests and the Illinois Test of Psycholin-

guistic Abilities subtests were obtained from their test

manuals. Since many of these scaled scores were negative

fractional numbers, these scores were coded by adding three

to remove the negative sign and multiplying by 10 0 to remove

the decimal point. This provided greater ease in computation.

37

The scaled scores of the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual

Perception were used on the two subtests, Test I and Test V.

The perceptual quotient score was used for the total test

score item. Frostig (1, p. 30) defines the perceptual

quotient as

. . . a deviation score obtained from the sum of the subtest scale scores after correction for age variation. Unlike the scale scores, however, it is not a ratio; it has been defined in terms of constant percentiles for each age group, with a median of 100, upper and lower quartiles or 110 and 90, respectively, and other percentile ranks consistent with I.Q. values of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children.

The scaled scores and the perceptual quotient were used for

they eliminated the age factor in the comparison.

The scores were programmed for simple correlation,

program S006 as described by McCallon (3). Using the S006

method of computing the scores, the score of each child for

each item was compared individually with his other nine test

scores. Such a comparison should reveal the relationship

between the subtest items and the total test score and the

relationship between each of these subtest items.

Pearson Product Moment Coefficients of Correlation were

obtained. The correlation measured the extent to which the

subtests were linearly related, and it is symbolized by r.

The value that r may assume varies between 4-1.0 to -1.0. A

correlation of +1.0 is a perfect positive correlation (4,

p. 142). The mean and standard deviation for each test item

were also obtained.

Fisher's z_ function was calculated. Fisher's z_ function

is "a mathematically defensible method of testing the sig-

nificance of an r, especially when the coefficient is very

high or very low" (2, p. 199). The following formula was

used for the computing: o„ = (2, p. 199). From a •If-3

table containing the conversion of a Pearson r into a cor-

responding Fisher's z coefficient, the z coefficients were

obtained. The .95 confidence interval for the true z, was computed by z + 1.96 X ( ——3==^ ) (2, p. 199. These z's

<yN-3 —

were converted back into r's by use of the provided table

in order to obtain the .95 confidence interval for the true

r. "The fiduciary probability is .95 that this interval

contains the true r," states Garrett (2, p. 199).

Table I shows the correlation coefficients of the

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children subtests with the

other subtests. There were no significant correlations

between the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children subtests

and the subtests of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic

Abilities and the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Per-

ception. A negative correlation was found between the

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children block design ana

Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception total

score, between the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children

object assembly and the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual

Perception eye-hand coordination subtest, and between uhe

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children coding subtest and

39

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40

all of the subtests of the Frostig Developmental Test of

Visual Perception.

Table II shows that there were no correlation coeffi-

cients which were not within the .95 confidence interval. A

correlation is significant when the r factor is not within

the limits of the .95 confidence interval. There were no

significant correlations found among the selected subtests of

the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities and the

Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception, when com-

pared to the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children

subtests.

Table III shows the correlation coefficients of the

Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities subtests and the

Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception subtests.

There were no significant correlations found between any of

the test items. A negative correlation was found between

the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities "visual-motor

sequencing subtest" and the Frostig Developmental Test of

Visual Perception "eye-hand coordination subtest." Table IV

reaffirms the findings of Table III in that there were no

significant correlations found between the selected items

from the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities and the

Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception. All of the

correlation coefficients were within the .95 confidence

interval.

41

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42

TABLE III

CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS OF ILLINOIS TEST OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC ABILITIES SUBTESTS WITH THE FROSTIG DEVELOPMENTAL

TEST OF VISUAL PERCEPTION

Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities

Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception

Test I Test V Total

Total .4332 .2439 .4493

Visual Motor Sequencing -.0140 .0078 .0858

Visual Motor Association

.1512 .1006 .0258

TABLE IV

PEARSON R AND .95 CONFIDENCE INTERVAL OF ILLINOIS TEST OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC ABILITIES SUBTESTS AND FROSTIG DEVELOPMENTAL TE'ST OF VISUAL PERCEPTION SUBTESTS

Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities

Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception

Total

Test I Test V Total

Total r= .43

1= .09/.68

r= .24

I=-.13/.54

r= .45

1= .11/.69

Visual Motor Sequencing

r=-.01

1= .09/.68

r=-.01

1=-.34/.36

r= .09

I=-.27/.43

Visual Motor Association

r= .15

I=-.22/.48

r= .10

I=-.26/.44

r= .03

I=-.33/.38

CHAPTER BIBLIOGRAPHY

Frostig, Marianne and David Home, The Frostig Program for the Development of Visual Perception, Chicago, Illinois, Follett Publishing Co., 1964.

Garrett, Henry E. and R. S. Woodworth, Statistics in Psychology and Education, New York, David McKay Company, fnc., 1966.

McCallon, Earl L., Computer Program Descriptions for Educational Data, North Texas State University, Denton, Texas, n.d.

McGuigan, F. J., Experimental Psychology: A Method-ological Approach, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1960.

Wechsler, David, Examiner's Manual for the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, New York, The Psycho-logical Corporation, 1949.

CHAPTER IV

DISCUSSION

Casual inspection of the visual-motor subtests of the

three tests seems to indicate that they are all measuring

the same general process. However, the results obtained

from this study do not reveal such a relationship. Since

all of the Pearson r factors remained within the 195 confi-

dence interval, as shown in Table II and Table IV, there were

no significant correlations found among the three tests for

this population. The Pearson r factors would be significant

only if they were not within the .95 confidence interval.

The results obtained seem to indicate that the three

tests measure different visual-motor processes. Although

the subtests vary in only one manner, this variation seems

to be enough to result in no significant correlations being

obtained among the tests. For example, the block design

subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, the

visual-motor sequencing subtest of the Illinois Test of

Psycholinguistic Abilities and ' the spatial relationships

subtest of the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Per-

ception require the child to reproduce or copy a geometric

design. Only the visual-motor sequencing test requires the

child to remember the design. The block design and the

spatial relationships tests differ only in that the child

45

has guidelines to aid him on the spatial, relationships test

and the block design test uses color clues. Although these

tests measure copying or reproduction ability, they seem to

be measuring different aspects of the visual-motor process.

Summary and Conclusions

The purpose of this study was to determine whether or

not the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities could be

used as a predictor of performance on visual-motor tasks of

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children and the Frostig

Developmental Test of Visual Perception by a child who has

learning problems. The study was conducted to ascertain

whether the same visual-motor processes were being measured

by the visual-motor subtests of the three tests. If a high

correlation existed between the similar subtest items of

the three tests and if such a relationship existed between

the subtest scores and the subject's overall scores, these

subtests might provide a very useful predictor of what indi-

vidual children could be expected to achieve with any of the

three tools.

Thirty children used in this study were selected from

the students referred to the Pupil Appraisal Center of North

Texas for evaluation of their learning disabilities. The ages

of the children ranged from six years nine months to nine

years three months, with a mean age of eight years three

months. From the Pupil Appraisal Center of North Texas files

46

the scaled scores and raw scores for the ten subtest scores

were obtained. The subtests used in this study were the per-

formance scaled score, block design, object assembly, and

coding from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children;

total score, visual-motor association, and the visual-motor

sequencing subtests from the Illinois Test of Psycholin-

guistic Abilities, and the total score, the eye-hand

coordination, and the spatial relationships subtests from

the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception. Each

child's score for each item was compared individually with

his other nine subtest scores. By comparing the test scores

in this manner, the relationship between the subtest items

and the total test score and the relationship between each

of the subtest items was revealed. Correlations between the

scores were obtained using the services of the North Texas

State University Computer Center. The mean and standard

deviation for each test item were also obtained from the

computer.

There were no significant positive correlations found

among the three tests. Negative correlations were found

between the Illinois Test of PsychoUnguistic Abilities

visual-motor sequencing subtest and the Frostig Developmental

Test of Visual Perception eye-hand coordination subtest, and

between the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children block

design subtest and the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual

Perception total test item. A negative correlation was also

47

found between the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children

coding subtest and all three subtest items of the Frostig

Developmental Test of Visual Perception/ and between the

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children object assembly sub-

test and the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception

eye-hand coordination subtest. However, Table II and Table

IV indicate that these negative correlations are not within

the range necessary for them to be considered significant

as computed by the Fisher's z_ function. To be significant,

these correlations must not be within the .95 confidence

interval, but all of the correlation coefficients are found

within this interval.

From the investigation it may be concluded that the

results of no one of the visual-motor subtests may be used

as a predictor of the scores to be derived with either of the

other two tests considered for a population similar to the

one used in this study.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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51

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Miller, W. A., editor, A Report on the First Year of Operation of the Pupil Appraisal Center of North Texas, Vol. I (March, 1968), School of Education, North Texas State University, Denton, Texas.