Date of Award

Spring 8-1-1984

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Educational and School Psychology

First Advisor

Edward A. Kirby

Second Advisor

Russell Hamm

Third Advisor

Walter L. Sullins

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate the applicability and appropriateness of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC)--Non-Verbal Scale for assessing intellectual functioning in severely hearing impaired children. The Non-verbal K-ABC was administered to 49 children ages 7 through 12 years enrolled at a public residential school for the deaf. Test instructions were given to one group of 24 employing American sign language (ASL), plus pantomime and gestures while the other group of 25 received pantomime and gesture (PG) instructions only. It was hypothesized that the ASL group would score significantly higher than the PG group. However, no significant difference was found between the two group mean Non-verbal K-ABC scores at the .10 level of probability. Also, neither group scored significantly different from the K-ABC norms. The findings suggest that the Nonverbal K-ABC may be a truly "non-verbal" test and that deaf children are not penalized if test instructions are not signed. The fact that the PG group actually scored substantially higher approaching significance (p = .104) on the Triangles subtest suggests that verbal mediation alone may not be sufficient to convey the nature of the task. Both groups scored significantly lower than K-ABC norms on the Spatial Memory subtest, suggesting that this task may be particularly difficult for hearing impaired children. However, the low scores could also be an artifact of difficulty in scoring the children's responses. Significant moderate correlations were found iv between the Non-verbal K-ABC and the previously administered Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children--Revised (WISC-R) Performance Scale (r = .64; .68). A significant moderate degree of correlation was also found between children's Nonverbal (K-ABC) scores and Reading Comprehension (r = .46; .53) and Mathematics (r = .68; .70) subtests of the Metropolitan Achievement Test. The findings are seen as providing some support for the construct and concurrent validity of the Non-verbal K-ABC. A post hoc analysis of data found that regardless of the instructional set the children scored significantly lower on the Non-verbal K-ABC (X = 97.82) than they did on the WISC-R Performance Scale (X = 108.14) at the .001 level of probability. This suggests that the Non-verbal K-ABC may underestimate the intelligence of severely hearing impaired children. The study is seen as providing some support for the appropriateness of the Non-verbal K-ABC for use with deaf children. However, due to the limitations of the study, additional research is strongly recommended.

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