Block Design and Neurocognitive Impairment in Children

Abstract

Learning disabled children were subgrouped according to etiology: neurocognitively impaired and neurocognitively intact. The two groups were found to be intellectually different from one another, as the impaired scored much lower on a general intelligence test than the intact. In addition, the impaired appeared to have a specific cognitive deficit, as they differed from the intact on the Block Design subtest when IQ was controlled through a difference of differences technique. Nonetheless, neither Block Design nor general intelligence was strongly related to reading deviation, though there was a suggestion of a relationship between Verbal IQ and reading within the impaired group. Despite the finding that the impaired group suffers from both global and specific intellectual deficits, it must be posited that nonintellective factors also much affect school performance. IQ and Block Design do not explain failure to read in either group. These findings and conclusions, it must be cautioned, pertain to abnormal populations.

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