Consistency of spatial ability performance in children, adolescents, and young adults

Abstract

BackgroundSpatial abilities are essential cognitive skills for many aspects of our everyday life that develop substantially throughout childhood and adolescence. While there are numerous measurement tools to evaluate these abilities, many of them have been designed for specific age groups hampering comparability throughout development. Thus, we determined test–retest-reliability and minimal detectable change for a set of tests that evaluate spatial ability performance in their variety in youth and compared them to young adults.MethodsChildren (age: 11.4 ± 0.5 years, n = 26), adolescents (age: 12.5 ± 0.7 years, n = 22), and young adults (age: 26.1 ± 4.0 years, n = 26) performed a set of five spatial ability tests twice, 20 min apart: Paper Folding Test (PFT), Mental Rotation Test (MRT), Water Level Task (WLT), Corsi Block Test (CBT), and Numbered Cones Run (NCR). Relative and absolute test–retest reliability was determined by calculating the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC3,1) and the standard error of measurement (SEM), respectively. Further, the minimal detectable change (MDC95%) was calculated to identify clinically relevant changes between repeated measurements.ResultsIrrespective of test, reliability was “excellent” (i.e., ICC3,1 ≥ 0.75) in all age cohorts and the SEM values were rather small. The MDC95% values needed to identify relevant changes in repeated measurements of spatial ability performance ranged between 0.8 and 13.9% in children, 1.1 and 24.5% in adolescents, and 0.7 and 20.8% in young adults.ConclusionThe determined values indicate that the investigated set of tests is reliable to detect spatial ability performance in healthy children, adolescents, and young adults.

A 6-week coordinative motor training program improves spatial ability performances in healthy children

“…The running order was predetermined by a random number generator and differed between participants. Reliability of the NCR (ICC = 0.91) has been shown in one of our previous studies (Morawietz et al, 2024).…”

“…For lines within the tolerance range of ±10 • from horizontal, participants received one point, amounting to a maximum of 12 points. Reliability of the PFT (ICC = 0.78), MRT (ICC = 0.81), and WLT (ICC = 0.88) has been shown in one of our previous studies (Morawietz et al, 2024).…”

“…144 points) were calculated. The CBT (span: ICC = 0.95; composite score: ICC = 0.93) proved to be reliable in one of our previous studies (Morawietz et al, 2024).…”

“…According to the test's authors, the PFT is suited for students from grade nine to 16 (Ekstrom et al, 1976). We tried to overcome this issue by evaluating test-retest reliability and minimal detectable change (MDC 95% ; i.e., the clinically relevant effect between repeated measurements of one subject) in younger children (mean age ± SD: 11.4 ± 0.5 years) and adolescents (mean age ± SD: 12.5 ± 0.7 years) prior to administering the test in the present study (Morawietz et al, 2024). Results indicated that the PFT would be suitable for this age group (ICC = 0.78), however, the test might not be sensitive enough to capture changes in the present age group or our sample might have been too small and not representative.…”