The Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test (UNIT) is a new, individually administered, nonverbal intelligence test that is administered to children ages 5 through 17, regardless of hearing status, via gesture. Methods to detect differential item functioning (DIF), including the Mantel-Haenszel and Item Response Theory (IRT) likelihood ratio procedures, were used to determine whether UNIT items in four subtests (Symbolic Memory, Spatial Memory, Analogic Reasoning, and Object Memory) function differently for profoundly deaf and hearing children from the national standardization sample. No items were found to exhibit DIF, indicating that the probability of a correct response does not seem to be affected by hearing status. Further studies of the psychometric properties of the UNIT when administered to deaf children are encouraged, as well as investigations of DIF in other tests that are widely used for assessing deaf children.
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