Administration of nonverbal tests of intelligence to deaf or hard of hearing
and Native Indian children has been problematic. Communication difficulties
between examiner and examinee have resulted in modifications to the
administration of the test. A standard method of test administration has not
been reported in the literature.
The current study investigated the use of pantomime instruction to administer
performance scales of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - Third
Edition (WISC-IlI) and the Stanford Binet: Fourth Edition (SB:FE). Subjects
included a group of otitis prone Native Indian children (n=87) and hearing peers
(n=80). Subjects in the hearing peer group were randomly assigned to verbal
(n=40) or pantomime instruction (n=40) to compare verbal and pantomime
administration of the tests.
T-test and ANOVAs were used to investigate comparisons between verbal
administration method (hearing peer) and between groups receiving pantomime
instruction (otitis prone and hearing peer). Multiple regression analyses were
used to determine whether nonverbal tests of intelligence were predictors of
academic achievement.
Results demonstrated pantomime instruction gave subjects information required to complete test and subtest tasks of the WISC-lll and SB:FE. There was not
a significant difference between verbal and pantomime instruction for the
hearing peer group. When the otitis prone group and the hearing peer group
were compared there was no significant differences between groups for the
WISC-lll. Item analysis provided additional support to pantomime instruction
giving adequate information to understand tasks. Multiple regression analyses
demonstrated that nonverbal measures of intelligence should not be used to
predict math or reading achievement for this population.
Language measures administered yielded very low scores across all three
groups. Although this was expected for the otitis prone group, low scores were
not expected for the hearing peer group. The short term memory subtests for
the SB:FE were also very low indicating another area of weakness for all three
groups which was not expected.
Results of the present study provides evidence to indicate pantomime instruction
is a viable method of administration when used with otitis prone and hearing
Native children. Further research is necessary to determine if standard
pantomime administration can be utilized to administer nonverbal measures of
intelligence to other groups of children with delayed language skills or
communication difficulties.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/8834 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Handy, Lynda Anne |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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