A puzzle form of a non-verbal intelligence test gives significantly higher performance measures in children with severe intellectual disability

Bello, Katrina D.; Goharpey, Nahal; Crewther, David P.

doi:10.1186/1471-2431-8-30

Cited by 15 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…While all Raven versions minimize both the need for instructions and demands for specific abilities (for example, typical language comprehension or production), RCPM board form enhances this Raven feature and, further, eliminates any requirement to point. There is preliminary evidence [ 18 ] that an improvised board or ‘puzzle’ form of RCPM, while equivalent to the on-paper version in typical children, produces both better scores and a higher completion rate in school-aged autistic children labeled with severe intellectual disability. A published large data set including RCPM board form scores for 256 autistic children aged 7 to 11 years [ 19 ] also suggests this test belongs in a strength-informed assessment for minimally verbal autistic children in this age range.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autistic children at risk of being underestimated: school-based pilot study of a strength-informed assessment

et al. 2015

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BackgroundAn important minority of school-aged autistic children, often characterized as ‘nonverbal’ or ‘minimally verbal,’ displays little or no spoken language. These children are at risk of being judged ‘low-functioning’ or ‘untestable’ via conventional cognitive testing practices. One neglected avenue for assessing autistic children so situated is to engage current knowledge of autistic cognitive strengths. Our aim was thus to pilot a strength-informed assessment of autistic children whose poor performance on conventional instruments suggests their cognitive potential is very limited.MethodsThirty autistic children (6 to 12 years) with little or no spoken language, attending specialized schools for autistic children with the highest levels of impairment, were assessed using Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-IV), Raven’s Colored Progressive Matrices board form (RCPM), Children’s Embedded Figures Test (CEFT), and a visual search task. An age-matched control group of 27 typical children was also assessed.ResultsNone of the autistic children could complete WISC-IV; only six completed any subtest. In contrast, 26 autistic children could complete RCPM, with 17 scoring between the 5th and 90th percentile. Twenty-seven autistic children completed the visual search task, while 26 completed CEFT, on which autistic children were faster than RCPM-matched typical children. Autistic performance on RCPM, CEFT, and visual search were correlated.ConclusionThese results indicate that ‘minimally verbal’ or ‘nonverbal’ school-aged autistic children may be at risk of being underestimated: they may be wrongly regarded as having little cognitive potential. Our findings support the usefulness of strength-informed approaches to autism and have important implications for the assessment and education of autistic children.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autistic children at risk of being underestimated: school-based pilot study of a strength-informed assessment

et al. 2015

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“…Six possible pieces are displayed as alternatives to best complete the pattern. The puzzle version (Bello et al, 2008 ) was used in the current study as it has been shown to reliably measure non-verbal mentation of individuals equal to the standard book form in children with typical development (Bello et al, 2008 ), and to increase response rate of children with ID. The puzzle version of RCPM uses identical matrices to the book form, but the six alternative answers are attached by Velcro requiring the participant to actually replace and reattach the chosen/preferred answer.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of Measures of Ability in Adolescents with Intellectual Disability

et al. 2016

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Finding the most appropriate intelligence test for adolescents with Intellectual Disability (ID) is challenging given their limited language, attention, perceptual, and motor skills and ability to stay on task. The study compared performance of 23 adolescents with ID on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV), one of the most widely used intelligence tests, and three non-verbal IQ tests, the Raven's Colored Progressive Matrices (RCPM), the Test of Non-verbal Intelligence-Fourth Edition and the Wechsler Non-verbal test of Ability. Results showed that the WISC-IV Full Scale IQ raw and scaled scores were highly correlated with total scores from the three non-verbal tests, although the correlations were higher for raw scores, suggesting they may lead to better understanding of within group differences and what individuals with ID can do at the time of assessment. All participants attempted more questions on the non-verbal tests than the verbal. A preliminary analysis showed that adolescents with ID without ASD (n = 15) achieved higher scores overall than those presenting with ID+ASD (n = 8). Our findings support the view that short non-verbal tests are more likely to give a similar IQ result as obtained from the WISC-IV. In terms of the time to administer and the stress for participants, they are more appropriate for assessing adolescents with ID.

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“…Individuals with ASD exhibit relatively high performance on the Block Design task even as general IQ decreases (Lincoln et al, 1988 ; Allen et al, 1991 ; Venter et al, 1992 ; Shah and Frith, 1993 ; Happe, 1994 ; Muth et al, 2014 ). Furthermore, while language based subtests are predictive of general IQ in typically developing populations, this is not considered to be the case for ASD (Bello et al, 2008 ; Charman et al, 2011 ; Muth et al, 2014 ; Courchesne et al, 2015 ). Similar comment on the pattern of strengths and weaknesses of visual processing associated with intelligence in ASD is limited due to the predominant use of the ASD without-ID population (see Muth et al, 2014 for comment).…”

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confidence: 99%

Vision Research Literature May Not Represent the Full Intellectual Range of Autism Spectrum Disorder

Brown

Chouinard

2017

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Sensory, in particular visual processing is recognized as often perturbed in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, in terms of the literature pertaining to visual processing, individuals in the normal intelligence range (IQ = 90–110) and above, are more frequently represented in study samples than individuals who score below normal in the borderline intellectual disability (ID) (IQ = 71–85) to ID (IQ < 70) ranges. This raises concerns as to whether or not current research is generalizable to a disorder that is often co-morbid with ID. Thus, the aim of this review is to better understand to what extent the current ASD visual processing literature is representative of the entire ASD population as either diagnosed or recognized under DSM-5. Our recalculation of ASD prevalence figures, using the criteria of DSM-5, indicates approximately 40% of the ASD population are likely to be ID although searching of the visual processing literature in ASD up to July 2016 showed that only 20% of papers included the ASD with-ID population. In the published literature, the mean IQ sampled was found to be 104, with about 80% of studies sampling from the 96–115 of the IQ range, highlighting the marked under-representation of the ID and borderline ID sections of the ASD population. We conclude that current understanding of visual processing and perception in ASD is not based on the mean IQ profile of the DSM-5 defined ASD population that now appears to lie within the borderline ID to ID range. Give the importance of the role of vision for the social and cognitive processing in ASD, we recommend accurately representing ASD via greater inclusion of individuals with IQ below 80, in future ASD research.

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A puzzle form of a non-verbal intelligence test gives significantly higher performance measures in children with severe intellectual disability

Cited by 15 publications

References 31 publications

Autistic children at risk of being underestimated: school-based pilot study of a strength-informed assessment

Autistic children at risk of being underestimated: school-based pilot study of a strength-informed assessment

Comparison of Measures of Ability in Adolescents with Intellectual Disability

Vision Research Literature May Not Represent the Full Intellectual Range of Autism Spectrum Disorder

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