Authors:
Lloyd M. Dunn, Eligio R. Padilla, Delia E. Lugo, and Leota M. Dunn

Publisher:
American Guidance Services
(800) 328-2560
www.agsnet.com

Initial Material Cost:
TVIP Test Kit: $119 (includes test easel, English or Spanish manual, and 25 record forms)
TVIP Manual: $40
25 Record Forms: $27

Representativeness of Norming Sample:
The norming sample consisted of monolingual, Spanish-speaking students in Latin America. Testing in Mexico took place between September 1981 and November 1982 and included 1,219 children from the public schools of Mexico with 20% coming from Mexico City. Testing in Puerto Rico took place between September 1982 and February 1983 and included 1,488 children from Puerto Rico with 62.2% from the San Juan metropolitan area. To correct for unevenness of socioeconomic status (SES) representation, a weighting system was used to increase or decrease the contributions of each individual's score at each age, so as to fit the SES ratios established by the U.S. census statistics.

Languages:
Spanish (the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test is the English Version of this test)

Type of Assessment:
Direct child assessment

Age Range and Administration Interval:
2 1/2 to 18 years

Personnel, Training, Administration, and Scoring Requirements:
Although formal training in psychometrics is not required, the examiners should be thoroughly familiar with the test materials and well-trained in administering and scoring the test. It is extremely important that the examiner be proficient in correctly pronouncing each stimulus word. It takes 10 to 15 minutes to administer.

Summary
Initial Material Cost: 2 ($100 to $200)
Reliability: 3 (.65 or higher for internal consistency, test-retest and inter-rater not described)
Validity: 1 (validity information not available on children from 0-3)
Norming Sample Characteristics: 2 (older than 15 years, not nationally representative)
Ease of Administration and Scoring: 3 (administered and scored by a trained individual)

Description: The TVIP is based on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) and includes 125 translated items to assess the vocabulary of Spanish-speaking and bilingual children. Items were selected through item analysis for their universality and appropriateness to Spanish-speaking communities. In the test, the examiner orally presents a stimulus word with a set of pictures and the test taker is asked to select the picture that best represents the word’s meaning. The examiner administers the items until the child’s “basal” and “ceiling” are found. The basal is the highest set of eight consecutive correct responses and the ceiling is the lowest set of eight consecutive responses containing six errors. Because it requires no reading or writing and is easy to administer, the TVIP is useful in assessing older toddlers and preschool children and is fair to persons with written-language problems and disabilities such as autism, withdrawn personalities, psychotic symptoms, severe cerebral palsy, and moderate visual disabilities.

Uses of Information: The TVIP can be used to measure a child’s receptive or hearing vocabulary of single Spanish words. It may be used as a screening test of verbal ability or verbal intelligence when Spanish is the language of the home and community into which the child was born and when Spanish is, and has been, the primary language of instruction in the child’s program. It may also be used as an achievement test showing the extent of Spanish vocabulary acquisition.

Reliability: (1) Internal consistency reliability (split-half reliability): the median correlation coefficient, corrected using the Spearman-Brown formula, was .93. For age 2_ to 3, the coefficient was .80. (2) Test-retest reliability: no information available. (3) Inter-rater reliability: no information available.

Validity: (1) Concurrent validity: Correlations ranged from .25 to .59 between scores on the TVIP and the Kaufmann-ABC Global Scales and from .28 to .69 between the TVIP and the Kaufman-ABC Achievement Scale Subtests among children ages 3 to 6. The correlation between TVIP and the Habilidad General Ability test was .44 among children attending an urban private school in Puerto Rico. (2) Predictive validity: no information available.

Method of Scoring: The raw score is obtained by subtracting the total number of errors between the basal and ceiling sets from the number associated with the highest item in the ceiling set. Using several tables, raw scores can be converted into different types of age-adjusted standardized scores using Mexican norms, Puerto Rican norms, or norms for a composite group. One table converts the raw score into a standard score. A second table converts the standard score into percentile rank, decile, and stanine. Finally, a third table converts the examinee’s raw score into the age equivalent performance.

Interpretability: Only persons with graduate training in psychological testing and statistics who are familiar with the research literature on the language and cognitive development of Hispanic children should interpret the results of the TVIP.

Training Support: None described.

Adaptations/Special Instructions for Individuals with Disabilities: Because no reading or writing is required, the TVIP can be administered to many groups with disabilities without any changes.

Report Preparation Support: None described.

References:

Dunn, Lloyd M., Eligio R. Padilla, Delia E. Lugo, and Leota M. Dunn. Examiner’s Manual for the Test De Vocabulario en Imagenes Peabody: Adaptiacion Hispanoamericana. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service, Inc., 1986.

Dunn, Lloyd M., and Leota M. Dunn. Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service, Inc., 1981.