The first goal of this article is to discuss the role of nonverbal ability tests in the identification of academically gifted children. I note that most nonverbal tests measure verbally mediated cognitive processes, that they are neither “culture free” nor “culture fair,” and that we have known these facts for a very long time. I show that selecting students for gifted and talented programs on the basis of such tests would exclude the majority of the most academically accomplished students in all ethnic groups. The second goal is to propose a better method for identifying gifted students. I argue that the critical issue is readiness for a particular type of educational opportunity. The cognitive aspects of readiness are evidenced first in students’ levels of knowledge and skill in particular domains and secondarily in their abilities to reason in the symbol systems used to communicate new knowledge in these domains. This applies to both minority and majority students. Therefore, the most academically talented minority students are those who show the strongest current achievement in particular domains and the best ability to reason in the symbol systems required for the acquisition of new knowledge in those domains. I also argue that, although current accomplishment can be measured on a common scale, judgments about potential must always be made relative to circumstances.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Ackerman, P. L., & Kanfer, R. (1993). Integrating laboratory and field study for improving selection: Development of a battery for predicting air traffic controller success. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 413-432.
2.
Achenbach, T. M. (1970). Standardization of a research instrument for identifying associative responding in children. Developmental Psychology, 2, 283-291.
3.
Achter, J. A., Lubinski, D., & Benbow, C. P. (1996). Multipotentiality among intellectually gifted: “It was never there and already it’s vanishing.” Journal of Counseling Psychology, 43, 65-76.
4.
Anastasi, A. (1980). Abilities and the measurement of achievement. In W. B. Schrader (Ed.), New directions of testing and measurement; Measuring achievement: Progress over a decade (pp. 1-10). San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
5.
Anastasi, A., & Urbina, S. (1997). Psychological testing (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
6.
Anderson, J. R. (1982). Acquisition of cognitive skill. Psychological Review, 89, 369-406.
7.
Assouline, S. G. (2003). Psychological and educational assessment of gifted children. In N. Colangelo & G. A. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of gifted education (3rd ed, pp. 124-145). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
8.
Bartlett, F. C. (1932). Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press.
9.
Bethell-Fox, C. E., Lohman, D. F., & Snow, R. E. (1984). Adaptive reasoning: Componential and eye movement analysis of geometric analogy performance. Intelligence, 8, 205-238.
10.
Bracken, B. A., & McCallum, R. A. (1998). Universal nonverbal intelligence test. Itasca, IL: Riverside.
11.
Braden, J. P. (2000). Perspectives on the nonverbal assessment of intelligence. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 18, 204-210.
12.
Carpenter, P. A., Just, M. A., & Shell, P. (1990). What one intelligence test measures: A theoretical account of the processing in the Raven Progressive Matrices Test. Psychological Review, 97, 404-431.
13.
Carroll, J. B. (1981). Twenty-five years of research on foreign language aptitude. In K. C. Diller (Ed.), Individual differences and universals in language learning aptitude (pp. 83-118). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
14.
Carroll, J. B. (1993). Human cognitive abilities: A survey of factor-analytic studies. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
15.
Cattell, R. B. (1971). Abilities: Their structure, growth, and action. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
16.
Corno, L., Cronbach, L. J., Kupermintz, H., Lohman, D. F., Mandinach, E. B., Porteus, A. W., & Talbert, J. E. (2002). Remaking the concept of aptitude: Extending the legacy of Richard E. Snow. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
17.
Cronbach, L. J. (1990). Essentials of psychological testing (5th ed.). New York: Harper and Row.
18.
Fitts, P. M. (1964). Perceptual-motor skill learning. In A. W. Melton (Ed.), Categories of human learning (pp. 243-285). New York: Academic Press.
19.
Forsyth, R. A., Ansley, T. N., Feldt, L. S., & Alnot, S. (2001). Iowa test of educational development, Form A. Itasca, IL: Riverside.
20.
Flynn, J. R. (1987). Massive IQ gains in 14 nations: What IQ tests really measure. Psychological Bulletin, 101, 171-191.
21.
Flynn, J. R. (1999). Searching for justice: The discovery of IQ gains over time. American Psychologist, 54, 5-20.
22.
Galton, F. (1972). Hereditary genius. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith. (Original work published 1869)
23.
Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: BasicBooks.
24.
Glaser, R. (1992). Expert knowledge and processes of thinking. In D. F. Halpern (Ed.), Enhancing thinking skills in the sciences and mathematics (pp. 63-75). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
25.
Gohm, C. L., Humphreys, L. G., & Yao, G. (1998). Underachievement among spatially gifted students. American Educational Research Journal, 35, 515-531.
26.
Gustafsson, J. -E., & Balke, G. (1993). General and specific abilities as predictors of school achievement. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 28, 407-434.
27.
Gustafsson, J. -E., & Undheim, J. O. (1996). Individual differences in cognitive functions. In D. C. Berliner & R. C. Calfee (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (pp. 186-242). New York: Simon & Schuster/Macmillan.
28.
Hagen, E. P. (1980). Identification of the gifted. New York: Teachers College Press.
29.
Hammill, D. D., Pearson, N. A., & Wiederholt, J. L. (1996). Comprehensive test of nonverbal intelligence. Austin, TX: PRO-ED.
30.
Heath, S. B. (1983). Ways with words: Language, life, and work in communities and classrooms. New York: Cambridge University Press.
31.
Hedges, L. V., & Nowell, A. (1998). Black-White test score convergence since 1965. In C. Jencks & M. Phillips (Eds.), The Black-White test score gap (pp. 149-181). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
32.
Hoover, H. D., Hieronymous, A. N., Frisbie, D. A., & Dunbar, S. B. (1993). Iowa test of basic skills, Form K: Survey battery. Chicago: Riverside.
33.
Hoover, H. D., Dunbar, S. B., & Frisbie, D. A. (2001). The Iowa test of basic skills, Form A. Itasca, IL: Riverside.
34.
Horn, J. L. (1985). Remodeling old models of intelligence. In B. B. Wolman (Ed.), Handbook of intelligence (pp. 267-300). New York: Wiley.
35.
Humphreys, L. G. (1973). Implications of group differences for test interpretation. In Proceedings of the 1972 Invitational Conference on Testing Problems: Assessment in a pluralistic society (pp. 56-71). Princeton, NJ: ETS.
36.
Humphreys, L. G. (1981). The primary mental ability. In M. P. Friedman, J. P. Das, & N. O’Connor (Eds.), Intelligence and learning (pp. 87-102). New York: Plenum.
37.
Humphreys, L. G., Lubinski, D., & Yao, G. (1993). Utility of predicting group membership: Exemplified by the role of spatial visualization for becoming an engineer, physical scientist, or artist. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 250-261.
38.
Irving, S. H. (1983). Testing in Africa and America. In S. H. Irvine & J. W. Berry (Eds.), Human assessment and cultural factors (pp. 45-58). New York: Plenum Press.
39.
Jensen, A. R. (1998). The g factor: The science of mental ability. Westport, CT: Praeger.
40.
Keith, T. Z. (1999). Effects of general and specific abilities on student achievement: Similarities and differences across ethnic groups. School Psychology Quarterly, 14, 239-262.
41.
Keith, T. Z., & Witta, E. L. (1997). Hierarchical and cross-age confirmatory factor analysis of the WISC-III: What does it measure?School Psychology Quarterly, 12, 89-107.
42.
Koretz, D., Lynch, P. S., & Lynch, C. A. (2000). The impact of score differences on the admission of minority students: An illustration. Statements of the National Board on Educational Testing and Public Policy, 1(5). Retrieved February 2, 2005, from http://www.bc.edu/research/nbetpp/publications/v1n5.html
43.
Kyllonen, P. C., & Christal, R. E. (1990). Reasoning ability is (little more than) working-memory capacity?!Intelligence, 14, 389-433.
44.
Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition. (1982). Culture and intelligence. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of intelligence (pp. 642-722). New York: Cambridge University Press.
45.
Lindsey, K. A., Manis, F. R., & Bailey, C. E. (2003). Prediction of first-grade reading in Spanish-speaking English-language learners. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 482-494.
46.
Lohman, D. F. (1994). Spatially gifted, verbally inconvenienced. In N. Colangelo, S. G. Assouline, & D. L. Ambroson (Eds.), Talent development: Vol. 2. Proceedings from The 1993 Henry B. and Jocelyn Wallace National Research Symposium on Talent Development (pp. 251-264). Dayton: Ohio Psychology Press.
47.
Lohman, D. F. (1996). Spatial ability and g. In I. Dennis & P. Tapsfield (Eds.), Human abilities: Their nature and assessment (pp. 97-116). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
48.
Lohman, D. F. (2000). Complex information processing and intelligence. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of human intelligence (2nd ed., pp. 285-340). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
49.
Lohman, D. F. (2003). Tables of prediction efficiencies. Retrieved February 2, 2005, from http://faculty.education.uiowa.edu/dlohman
50.
Lohman, D. F. (2004). Aptitude for college: The importance of reasoning tests for minority admissions. In R. Zwick (Ed.), Rethinking the SAT: The future of standardized testing in college admissions (pp. 41-55). New York: Routledge/Falmer.
51.
Review of Naglieri and Ford (2003): Does the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test identify equal proportions of high-scoring White, Black, and Hispanic students?
52.
Lohman, D. F. (in press). An aptitude perspective on talent: Implications for identification of academically gifted minority students. Journal for the Education of the Gifted.
53.
Lohman, D. F., & Hagen, E. P. (2001a). Cognitive abilities test (Form 6). Itasca, IL: Riverside.
54.
Lohman, D. F., & Hagen, E. P. (2001b). Cognitive Abilities Test (Form 6): Interpretive guide for school administrators. Itasca, IL: Riverside.
55.
Lohman, D. F., & Hagen, E. P. (2001c). Cognitive Abilities Test (Form 6): Interpretive guide for teachers and counselors. Itasca, IL: Riverside.
56.
Lohman, D. F., & Hagen, E. P. (2002). Cognitive Abilities Test (Form 6): Research handbook. Itasca, IL: Riverside.
57.
Lubinski, D. (2003). Exceptional spatial abilities. In N. Colangelo & G. A. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of gifted education (3rd ed., pp. 521-532). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
58.
Lubinski, D., & Benbow, C. P. (1995). An opportunity for empiricism [Review of Multiple intelligences]. Contemporary Psychology, 40, 935-937.
59.
Marshalek, B., Lohman, D. F., & Snow, R. E. (1983). The complexity continuum in the radex and hierarchical models of intelligence. Intelligence, 7, 107-128.
60.
Martinez, M. (2000) Education as the cultivation of intelligence. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
61.
Miller, J. G. (1997). A cultural-psychology perspective on intelligence. In R. J. Sternberg & E. L. Grigorenko (Eds.), Intelligence, heredity, and environment (pp. 269-302). New York: Cambridge University Press.
62.
Mills, C., & Tissot, S. L. (1995). Identifying academic potential in students from under-represented populations: Is using the Ravens Progressive Matrices a good idea?Gifted Child Quarterly, 39, 209-217.
63.
Mulholland, T. M., Pellegrino, J. W., & Glaser, R. (1980). Components of geometric analogy solution. Cognitive Psychology, 12, 252-284.
64.
Naglieri, J. A. (1997). Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test: Multilevel technical manual. San Antonio, TX: Harcourt Brace.
65.
Naglieri, J. A., & Das, J. P. (1997). Cognitive assessment system. Itasca, IL: Riverside.
66.
Naglieri, J. A., & Ford, D. Y. (2003). Addressing underrepresentation of gifted minority children using the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT). Gifted Child Quarterly, 47, 155-160.
67.
Naglieri, J. A., & Ford, D. (2005). Increasing minority children's participation in gifted classes using the NNAT: A response to Lohman. Gifted Child Quarterly, 49, 29-36.
68.
Naglieri, J. A., & Ronning, M. E. (2000). The relationship between general ability using the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT) and Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) reading achievement. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 18, 230-239.
69.
Oakland, T., & Lane, H. B. (2004). Language, reading, and readability formulas: Implications for developing and adapting tests. International Journal of Testing, 4, 239-252.
70.
Pedhazur, E. J. (1982). Multiple regression in behavioral research: Explanation and prediction (2nd ed.). New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
71.
Piaget, J. (1952). The origins of intelligence in children. New York: International Universities Press.
72.
Plomin, R., & De Fries, J. C. (1998). The genetics of cognitive abilities and disabilities. Scientific American, 278, 62-69.
73.
Raven, J. (2000). The Raven’s Progressive Matrices: Change and stability over culture and time. Cognitive Psychology, 41, 1-48.
74.
Raven, J. C., Court, J. H., & Raven, J. (1983). Manual for Raven’s Progressive Matrices and vocabulary scales, section 4: Advanced progressive matrices, sets I and II. London: H. K. Lewis.
75.
Richert, E. S. (2003). Excellence with justice in identification and programming. In N. Colangelo & G. A. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of gifted education (3rd ed., pp. 146-158). Boston: Pearson Education.
76.
Rodriguez, M. C. (2003). Construct equivalence of multiple-choice and constructed-response items: A random effects synthesis of correlations. Journal of Educational Measurement, 40, 163-184.
77.
Scarr, S. (1981). Race, social class, and individual differences in IQ. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
78.
Scarr, S. (1994). Culture-fair and culture-free tests. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Encyclopedia of human intelligence (pp. 322-328). New York: Macmillan.
79.
Shepard, R. N. (1978). Externalization of mental images and the act of creation. In B. Randhawa & W. Coffman (Eds.), Visual learning, thinking, and communication (pp. 133-190). New York: Academic Press.
80.
Snow, R. E., & Lohman, D. F. (1984). Toward a theory of cognitive aptitude for learning from instruction. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76, 347-376.
81.
Snow, R. E., & Lohman, D. F. (1989). Implications of cognitive psychology for educational measurement. In R. L. Linn (Ed.), Educational measurement (3rd ed., pp.263-332). New York: Macmillan.
82.
Snow, R. E., & Yalow, E. (1982). Education and intelligence. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of human intelligence (pp. 493-585). New York: Cambridge University Press.
83.
Sternberg, R. J. (1982). Reasoning, problem solving, and intelligence. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of human intelligence (pp. 225-307). New York: Cambridge University Press.
84.
Sternberg, R. J. (1985). Beyond IQ: A triarchic theory of human intelligence. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
85.
Sternberg, R. J., & Nigro, G. (1980). Developmental patterns in the solution of verbal analogies. Child Development, 51, 27-38.
86.
Thorndike, R. L., & Hagen, E. (1993). The cognitive abilities test: Form 5. Itasca, IL: Riverside.
87.
Thorndike, R. L., & Hagen, E. (1996). The Cognitive Abilities Test (Form 5): Interpretive guide for school administrators. Itasca, IL: Riverside.
88.
Thurstone, L. L. (1938). Primary mental abilities. Psychometric Monographs, 1-1.
89.
U.S. Department of Education, Office of Education Research and Improvement. (1993). National excellence: A case for developing American talent. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
