Authors:
Gale H. Roid and Lucy J. Miller
Publisher:
Stoelting Co.
(630) 860-9700
www.stoeltingco.com
Initial Material Cost:
Complete Leiter-R Kit: $850 (includes manual, 3 easel books,
response cards, manipulatives, record forms, booklets, and
carrying case)
Representativeness of Norming Sample:
The Leiter-R was standardized on 1,719 typical children and
adolescents and 692 atypical children ages 2 years to 20 years,
11 months using a national stratification plan based on 1993
U.S. Census statistics for age, gender, and socioeconomic
status. Nationally representative proportions of children
who are Caucasian, Hispanic-American, African-American, Asian-American,
and Native American were included.
Languages:
English |
Type of
Assessment:
Direct child assessment
Age Range and Administration Interval:
2 years to 20 years, 11 months
Personnel, Training, Administration,
and Scoring Requirements:
The Leiter-R should be administered by a trained individual
who has received supervised training and practice. It should
be interpreted by someone with graduate training in psychological
assessment. Administration times for the Leiter-R range from
25 to 40 minutes.
Summary
Initial Material Cost: 3 ($200 or higher)
Reliability: 3 (.65 or higher)
Validity: 3 (concurrent .5 or higher, no information or predictive)
Norming Sample Characteristics: 3 (normed within past 15 years,
nationally representative)
Ease of Administration and Scoring: 3 (administered and scored
by a trained individual) |
Description: The Leiter-R is
an individually administered nonverbal test designed to assess
cognitive functions in children and adolescents. It was developed
to provide a reliable and valid nonverbal measure of intellectual
ability, memory, and attention that could be used to assess
children, adolescents, and young adults who could not be reliably
and validly tested using traditional intelligence tests. The
Leiter-R consists of two groupings of subtests: (1) the Visualization
and Reasoning (VR) Battery (10 subtests), and (2) the Attention
and Memory (AM) Battery (10 sub-tests). It also includes four
social-emotional rating scales (Examiner, Parent, Self, and
Teacher) that provide behavioral observation information about
the examinee. The majority of Leiter-R items require the child
to move response cards into slots on the easel tray. Other
items require arranging manipulatives (foam rubber shapes)
and pointing to responses on the easel pictures. Starting
points in the sub-tests are determined by the child’s
age (there are three age groups for administration of the
Leiter-R: 2-5, 6-10, and 11-20).
Uses of Information: The Leiter-R
can be used to help identify children with cognitive disabilities,
to monitor small increments of improvements in cognitive abilities,
and to develop intervention strategies that address the identified
disabilities. For initial screening purposes, four sub-tests
in the VR Battery can be used to measure the child’s
global intellectual level as part of a battery of other tests
and assessments. The full VR Battery (six subtests for children
ages 2 to 5) can be used for identification, classification,
and placement decisions. The AM Battery can be used for a
comprehensive diagnostic assessment of attention and memory
difficulties, neuropsycho-logical evaluations, and evaluation
of cognitive process deficits in learning disabilities or
attention deficit disorders. Examiners have the option of
using the VR and AM Batteries separately; however, the Batteries
should be used together for a thorough cognitive assessment,
particularly when it is expected that cognitive-process deficits
in memory or attention are interfering with the accurate evaluation
of global intellectual level.
Reliability: (1) Internal consistency
reliability (Cronbach’s alpha): for children age
2, alphas ranged from .71 to .94 across the VR Battery
sub-tests and, for children ages 2 to 3, the alphas ranged
from .77 to .89 for the AM Battery sub-tests. For children
ages 2 to 5, the alphas ranged from .71 to .90 for the
AM Battery special diagnostic scale, and the reliability
coefficients from .94 to .99 for the composite rating
scale, and .87 to .93 for IQ and composite scores. (2)
Test-retest reliability (with interval not reported):
test-retest correlations ranged from .61 to .95 across
the VR Battery subtest and composite scores and .86 to
.94 across the examiner rating scales and composite for
children ages 2 to 5.
(3) Inter-rater reliability: no information reported in
the manual.
Validity: (1) Concurrent validity:
concurrent validity tests between the Leiter-R (Brief and
Full Scale IQ) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children
(WISC-III) (Performance and Full Scale IQ) on children ages
6 to 16 resulted in correlations of .85 and .86. The reported
tests between Leiter-R Full Scale IQ scores with other cognitive
tests showed correlations that ranged from .38 to .66. Tests
for accuracy on children ages 2 to 20 showed that a cut-point
of 70 on the Leiter-R Full Scale IQ score correctly classified
more than 80 percent of children with cognitive delays. The
classification accuracy of the Leiter-R for identifying giftedness
was not as good, and the manual recommends that the Leiter-R
never be used in isolation to identify giftedness. (2) Predictive
validity: no information available.
Method of Scoring: The manual
contains detailed scoring instructions. For most subtests,
responses are scored as (0) Fail or incorrect, or (1) Pass
or correct. Scoring criteria for each item are noted on the
instruction page for each subtest. For some subtests, scoring
requires counting the number of correct responses and the
number of errors. Raw scores are typically obtained by summing
correct responses. The raw scores on the subtests and rating
scales are converted to scaled scores (with a mean of 10 and
a standard deviation of 3) using a table provided in the manual.
IQ scores are calculated from sums of subtest scaled scores
and converted to IQ standard scores (with a mean of 100 and
standard deviation of 15) using a table in the manual. Composite
scores can also be obtained for Fluid Reasoning, Fundamental
Visualization, Spatial Visualization, Attention, and Memory.
In addition, the raw scores for each subtest and IQ can be
converted to growth-scale scores that define a child’s
domain of abilities in a metric that can reflect growth and
be useful for treatment planning and measuring change over
time.
Interpretability: Only persons
with graduate training in psychological testing and statistics
should interpret the results of the Leiter-R. The manual also
cautions that IQ scores from the Leiter-R should never be
used in isolation and should be evaluated in the context of
a wide variety of information about the child. The manual
includes an extensive discussion of the interpretation of
Leiter-R results and provides case studies to demonstrate
the interpretation of scores.
Training Support: None described.
Adaptations/Special Instructions for
Individuals with Disabilities: The Leiter-R was specially
developed to be used with children who could not be reliably
and validly tested using traditional intelligence tests, including
children with significant communication disorders, cognitive
delays, English as a second language, hearing impairments,
motor impairments, traumatic brain injury, attention-deficit
disorder, and certain types of learning disabilities. The
manual discusses adaptations to administration methods that
may be needed for some children to establish that the child
understands the nature of the task or to enable the child
to communicate answers to test items within the capabilities
they have. When such adaptations are made, growth-scale scores
that do not rely on normative comparisons should be used.
Report Preparation Support:
None described.
References:
Roid, Gale H., and Lucy J. Miller. Leiter International Performance
Scale-Revised. Wood Dale, IL: Stoelting Co., 1995, 1997. |
