psl- 148 DST MANUAL KNOW YOUR CHILD’S INTELLIGENCE AND HOW TO IMPROVE IT oy Ae =a mt SWAYAMSIDDHA PRAKASHANA OU el ORS Mey UE Col TSEC CT HTNCONTENTS Developmental ocreening 1¢st Manual face is Intelligence ? low does Intelligence Develop ? _ What is Mental Retardation ? _ Can Intelligence Be Improved ? " How to Improve Intelligence ? Acquisition of Gross Muscular Skills Acquisition of Manipulative Skills Acquisition of Visual Inspection skills Acquisition of Communication Skills Acquisition of Interpretation Skills The I.Q+Programme Research Study Where Services are Available ? 11 29 32 42 49 s7 73 RSSReS 1search Study. Further Dr. N. Rathna sugy follow up study. The modifications of the pr the group facilitating situation occupied a large the author. It was indeed a well spent time. The to acknowledge the help and assistance from Sri Smt. Bhavani and his other colleagues and version of DST (1977) with its review in the Clinical Psychology, the subsequent rejoinder by which resulted in a detailed cross validation study Chandigarh group of clinical psychologists provide an plary exercise in research methodology. Dr. S. K. Varma, | Dwaraka Prasad and Dr. Menon are to be particularly thanked for putting my test to a crucial test. The author thanks many ot ers who have sparked enthusissm to bring this work to reality Finally the author wishes to acknowledge the co-operation of Sri. G. H. Krishnamurthy and his colleagues of Mysore Print: ing Press, K. M. Puram, Mysore 570 005.fian J. Clin. Psychol. (1983) 10 : 517-526 Book and Test Reviews Manual— Know Your Child's Intelligence and How to The second (revised) edition coming after 6 years of the edition of D.S.T. is indeed quite welcome, for a number of ns. First it is rare that revised manuals are brought out in ia at such a short interval. In fact there are many well known tests badly in need of revision (of items, scoring, norms etc.) but one seems to be forthcoming. Secondly, the revised edition brings forth a wealth of data not previously included, and in greater detail. Thirdly, the criticism of the test (alongwith the | suggestions) are also published as such. Fourthly, almost all the Suggestions have been accepted and modifications, wherever Tequired, have been incorporated. Lastly, a number of additional aspects like, "What is intelligence,” “How does intelligence de- velop,’ “What is Mental Retardation,” "C. intelligence be im- Proved,” “How to improve intelligence,” “Acquisition of gross muscular skills,” etc. and the list of places (and persons involved in) where such services are available— all these have added to the value of Manual. Actually it is more than a manual, with all these information added for the benefit of parents who are often inquisitive about such things. DST folder with LQ. calculator is quite handy, lends itself to time saving, thereby increasing the Utility of the scale,iThe Developmental Developed by Bharath Raj (1977, 1983) D purpose of measuring mental development of cl years of age. It consists of 88 items which acteristics of respective age levels. At each age from behavioural areas, like motor development, personal-social development. Appraisal of a child can be done in semi-stn @ parent or person well acquainted with the child. ” incorporated in the plastic test folder helps in ready from Mental Age and Acutal Age of the child. The DST meets the criteria of a good ps simplicity, precision objectivity, reliability and validity. Research data on validity study indicated that DST with Seguin Form Board to the extent of 0.8 and with Colum Maturity Scale, r = 0.75. High positive correlation was 0 cross validation study of DST. The interscorer reliability between two trained clinical psychologists was found to be 0.928. The test-retest reliability was obtained as 0.98 which is significant and satisfactory. Hence, DST is a useful tool for screening mentally ret dren in our country. —Dr. SAROJTHE DEVELOPMENTAL SCREENING TEST MANUAL troduction implicity, Precision, Objectivity, Reliability, Validity and onomy are the cardinal features of a good psychologi- al test. The Developmental Screening Test (DST) meets se criteria satisfactorily. Since its early publication in 977, the test is being used at some of the premiere insti- tions in our country like the Alll India Institute of Speech d Hearing, Mysore, National Institute of Mental Health Neuro Sciences, Bangalore,, B. M. Institute of Mental lealth, Ahmedabad, Post-Graduate Institute of Medical jucation and Research, Chandigarh etc. Further the test as been cross validated by the Chandigarh group of clini- al psychologists which is presented in the body of this manual. Purpose The Developmental Screening Test is designed for the _ purpose of measuring mental development of children from birth to 15 years of age. Larger number of items at early -age levels permits assessment of very young children. Italicised items on the schedule cover the Speech and Lan- guage development. The test provides for a brief and fairly dependable assessment without requiring the use of per- formance tests. Appraisal can be done in a semi-structured interview with the child and a parent or a person well ac- quainted with the child. In its present form the DST can be repeatedly used in assessments. The I. Q. calculator incor- porated in the plastic test folder helps in ready compu- tation of I.Q. from M.A. and C.A.12 Originally 124 items were dey ules and studies out of which finally wpon by the frequency of their appe: sources consulted, At early age levels considerable behaviour items appear as it has many integrative behavioural implications tute the natural starting point for develop are items of adaptive behaviour which re motor adjustment to objects, persons and situat guage behavioural items find a place which of all visible and audible forms of comm vocalisations, words etc. Personal-social b also find a place as they comprise of a chil responsiveness to the social culture of which he is ber e.g. play co-operativeness etc, : An explanatory note for each item is omitted superfluous and unnecessary. Each item is discrete and: : explanatory and can be assessed objectively by apare a teacher or a clinician. The point under consideration whether the concerned behavioural characteristic has emerged, has becom explicit/manifest in the behavioural Tepertoire or the child or not i.e., whether the child is ca- pable of doing it or not. Hen... The items included in tne schedule stand for discrete and discernible behavioural characteristics : of the respective age levels. At each age level, items ate drawn from behavioural fields like motor devel cna speech-language development and personal-social ively opment. These behavioural items have been selecti FS chosen from the earlier schedules incorporating als013 Its from three Indian Studies, the AIISH study (1971) aroda Longitudinal Study (1971) and the NCERT Na- ional Study (1971). The earlier Developmental Schedules consulted were 1) Tredgold’s Table of Normal Developmental Data redgold and Tredgold, 1952) (2) Gesell’s Developmen- Schedule (Gesell and Amatruda, 1949) Vineland So- ial Maturity Scale (Doll, 1953), Denver Developmental reening Test (Fronkenburg and Dodds, 1969) and the guage items from the Manual of Child Psychology (Sec- ed. Leonard Carmichael, 1968). These schedules com- prised of items chosen from different areas of behaviour. Some noteworthy studies carried out in India were con- sulted like (Baroda Longitudinal Study 1971), (Pramila Pathak, 1971), (NCERT National Study 1971),(AIISH | Study, 1971) (Hegde, 1971), Your Child from 1 to 6 (Nirmala Kher, 1970) and Your Child from 6 to 12 (Ka- mala Bhoota, 1970). The items included in the DST were chosen on the basis of the number of studies that expressly mentioned them at appropriate age levels. The items in the DST do not always stand for the mean/ median age at which they make appearance. Instead there is an upward tilt,giving the benefit to the child. Thus for example, the item "Toilet control present" appears at 3 years Meaning thereby, that atleast by three years of age a nor- mal child has acquired toilet control. Majority of normal children i.e., about 70-90% of them should be able to present the behavioural items presented at the appropriate age levels. 60% of the items stand for clearly discernible behavioural characteristics enabling the clinician on thespot evaluation of the item. e can be evaluated based on the i entrelative. Here also the items the weightage of bias from searching questions on each i Appraisal of the child is done as on other schedules starting from a ‘Basal Age’ whe istics at a particular age are passed and gradu through upper age levels. Assessment is si of determining how well a child's behaviour fits level constellation rather than another by direct son. The schedule has very few culturally laden Testing can be done in semi-structured interview parent or person well acquainted with the child. Hav! obtained the mental age (M.A.) the 1.Q. calculator is ‘The derived Mental Age is synchronised with the age of the child and the LQ. is directly read off from © slit. This saves lot of computational labour.15 VALIDITY irty five cHildren (19 boys and 16 girls) varying in age rom 4 years to I years studying from nursery education Vth Standard were tried on each of the tests, Develop- ntal Screening Test, Seguin Form Board and Columbia ental Maturity Scale. D.S.T. Correlated with S.F.B. to the Extent of + 0.85 and with CMMS to the extent of + 0.75 both correlations being significant at both 0.05 P and 0.01 P. These values are suggestive of good validity of D.S.T. High positive correlations among tests which measure intelligence in different modalities is substantiated in other ' studies also. For e.g., in one another research study of a broader scope where 300 subjects had been tested for in- telligence had given high positive correlations. The intercorrelations between Seguin Form Board, Tredgold's Developmental Criteria, Gesell's Developmental Sched- ule, Vineland Social Maturity Scale and Kamath's Revi- sion of Binet were statistieally significant at 0.05 and 0.01p levels (Except between Gesell and Kamath which was sig- nificant at 0.05p level). The following table presents intercorrelations between tests. Factor analysis carried out along the lines of centroid technique by Thurstone yielded one ctor only which accounted for a large part of vari- ance. This was possibly the factor of general mental abil- ity.16 Inter-Correlations among tests SFB Tredgold Gesell Vineland SEB. 0.67 = 0.79 rh Tredgold 0.85 0.96 os Gesell 0.84 tis Vineland 0.92 Kamath NE This intimate relationship among different kinds of inte). ligence tests, is also seen from the study presented by Verma S. K.etal., in the following section. The DST and its Manual were sent for review in the Indian Journal of Clinical Psychology. Subsequently the review appeared and the following is the text of review, A rejoinder to the test review by the author followed in the next issue of the same Journal which also is presented be- low. A very beneficial result followed. Dr. S. K. Verma in collaboration with Dr. D. Pershad and Dr. R. Menon car- ried out a research study to put the D.S.T. to a crucial test. The results of this study also is published below with the title "Cross Validation of Developmental Screening Test (DST)" which appeared in Jndian Journal of Clinical Psy- chology (Dr. Verma, et al). Indeed the author of DST is highly grateful to Dr S. K. Verma, Dr. Dwarka Pershad and Dr. R. Menon for having validated this study on a fairly large sample. TEST REVIEW Manual for Developmental Screening Test (D.S.T.) by J. Bharath Raj, published by Padmashree 58, Sth Main, Saraswathipuram. Mysore-9. Price not mentioned. Refet- ences three mentioned in the main body but not given 4! the end. 8 ®17 urpose of this test, according to the ntal development of children "from birth to 15 of age” and the test "provides for a brief and fairly years dable assessment without requiring the use Of per- pi tests.” There are 88 items, distributed accordin ee age scales 3 months, 6 Months, 9 months, | eae - year, 20 13 years at yearly intecvals and finally at 1$ years. The number of items vary from 3 at age 12 years at 3 at 3 months level (no reasons given for this marked variation and if and how it affects the final results). The sources of items have been “the earlier schedules incorporating also the results from three Indian studies,, the ALLS.H. study (1971) Baroda Longitudinal study, (1971) and the NCERT National study (1971). The items do not always stand for the mean/median age at which they make appearance. (The rationale for this is not given), 60% of the items are said to stand for clearly discernible behavioural characteristics enabling the clinician on the spot evaluation of items while 40% can be evaluated based on the information given by a parent/relative. Nearly 25% of items are on speech development. LQ calculine chart is given with C.A. varying from 3 years to 15 years and M.A, '/, to 16 years; at yearly inter- v2ls (however it is not clear if say 2 years means 2 years 7 ie or 3 years to 3 years 5 months). Validity is estab- 'shed on 35 children (r+.85 with Seguin Form Board and ae Columbia Mental Maturity Scale). This is con- to be "good validity of D.S.T." by the author. (The satiment that both correlations are "significant at both 05 tna evel is rather amusing and superfluous). os Scores and its interpretation based on obtai author is to18 ¢ is given. The categories are severe subnormay; a sederaie subnormality (20-50), mild subnon, (50-70), borderline deficit (70-85) superior (130-159), we superior (150-180) and genius (180-200), with a little m2 attention, overlapping scores (20, 50, 70, etc.) could ha been avoided. Beside, for higher age groups (above ri years, particularly) many of these categories are ingless. For example, for 15 years the highest measurey 1.Q. is 107 only. There are certain more serious limitations of the test One is the rough nature or approximations of "IQs. (which should have better been called "D.Qs.' as indicated by the nature of items and also by the sources of items). A differ. ence of even half an year is equivalent to an "I.Q." differ. ence of 17 points at 3 years level. These differences are gradually reduced to 3 or 4 "IQ." points at 11 to 15 years level, but this test is unlikely to be used for measurement of intelligence in the age group of 10+, for which we have better, more accurate and finer tests. The 1.Q. calculine chart starts with C.A. of 3% years and above, which shows that perhaps the author may have some doubts about the utility of the test below 3 years of age. A small difference in M.A. would have meant much more than 17-1.Q. poin's difference for children below 2 years age level. Another limitation is that the test is an age scale “stat ing from a Basal Age. Assessment is simply a matter of determining how well a child's behaviour fits one agelevt constellation rather than another by direct co! i 2 point scale would have overcome some of the diffi mentioned above, as has been shown by Vineland S Maturity Scale (Nagpur) Adaptation bv A. J. Malin19 Validity has been established on 35 children only (19 and 16 girls ranging from 4 years to 11 years, from education to Vth standard). This is a very heterog- s group but considered “satisfactory” by the author no information is given regarding the pass percentage h item by different age groups (even from the origi- source, this information would have been welcome). alidity (by correlating the test with Columbia Mental turity Scale and Seguin Form Board) is established for 1 years, how it is claimed to be useful for "measuring tal development of children from birth to 15 years of " remains a moot question. Perhaps further validation h children below 4 years and above 1! years is already progress. Even in the age range of 4-11 years, certainly re information on homogeneous age groups and larger ples will be required before the validity can be accept- 1é as "good validity” (it is too well known that the de- ¢ of correlation is at least partly a function of heteroge- ity of the sample). Itis also considered desirable to give all the references the end. In spite of the limitations mentioned above, the DST likely to prove successful, as the test serves a useful nrpose and the effort is praiseworthy. Undoubtedly there need for further work with the test before it can be fully ptable to all. (Indian J. Clini. Psychol. (1977), Vol.4, pp. 209-211)man had an interesting comment his address, he stated that "peop! selves and this is an essential a ogy. But the differences between are much more than any two ordin Clinical Psychologists meet there w’ very much impressed by the truth of | ment and was somehow reminded of having gone through my test review in n Ctinical Psychology, Vol. 4, 197, pp. 209- ido not claim any unique originality f mental Screening Test. My purpose was strument that would yield a fairly dependabl mental development of children (through se: Still believe it does so, which opinion I base on the test in our own clinic. In fact there are other mental schedules which do provide a more sessment. It is the experience of many clini country that even obtaining accurate chronologi children is a formi . items stand for clearly disc behavioural characteristics thereby lessening the w of bias from the informant. Speech and language #! Biven due importance. The 1.Q, calculine chart facil21 t reading of 1.Qs from M.As' and C.As', and therefore computational labour. The arrangement of items are ade as to emerge at chronologically advancing stages sively. The inclusion of items from three Indian ies has increased the validity of the test (Pramila , 1971, Hegde, 1971, NCERT, 1971). Further, the test items are to a large extent culture free. indamentally believe that the same basic developmen- laws/principles are operative in every culture. (Quite n the cultural differences are made much of). The evi- ce to this actually came from two large scale studies at India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysore. In my ly (Bharath Raj, 1971) the differences in performance ween Western and Indian children (N-1052) on Seguin Board were not found to be statistically significant. 1 my colleagues' study (Hegde, 1971) (N varying from 6 to 567 children), Hegde concluded "there does not m to be significant intercultural differences except for he stage of creeping.” | For quite sometime past, I have been harbouring upon veloping some novel diagnostic and therapeutic instru- nts in clinical practice where economy (Utility and me) should be the chief criterion for trying them. The T is only one step in that direction. Ido agree with Dr. Verma that tue test has certain limi- tions such as, the 1.Q. calculine chart not including the +hronological ages below 3 years, that I.Qs be better called .Q.s., that pass percentages of each item by the different ge groups be worked out, that the correlation values of .S.T. with other tests are not dependable due to hetero- eneity of sample etc. As Dr. Verma has rightly guessedPramila Phatak (1971)—Baroda Long tor Growth of Indian Babies,” 197 Hegde M. N. (1971) "AILSH Norms Developmental Screening Test tered to 170 children—108 of them of lio 15 years. Along with DST, d of the child, Gesells Drawing Test, Seg Vineland Social Maturity Scale and Malin's Scale for children were also administered. TI Were divided into 3 age groups-viz., 1-5, 6-10. a Professor, S.K. Verma, M.A. DGP, PARSE EAD a of Psychiatry, PGIMER, Chandigarh, 160 : D Fessd., MA DM & SP, Ph D., Lecturer, Department of PS & SP, Clinical Psychologist, Go 8 ion, Sector 18-D, Chandigarh 160 0123 order tO find out if it is more suitable for one age group than another. pST showed very high positive correlations+.7215 to+.9968 with other intelligence or developmental tests, which shows that itis a valid test for all the three age groups under consideration. Interscorer reliability (+.928) and test retest reliability (.98) were also found to be high and satis- factory- Introduction Almost a year back, one of the present author (S.K.V.) while reviewing the Developmental Screening Test (DST) had pointed out certain limitations of the test like small sample, heterogeneous validation group, etc., (Verma, 1977). At the same time, certain suggestions were made and the hope expressed that it would prove to be "success- fulas the test serves a useful purpose”. In the present work, an attempt is made to provide some of the additional data that may prove to be helpful for those using this test. Aims : (i) To study the Validity of DST by correlating it with other scales (both verbal and performance) in chil- dren below 15 years of age. 5 (ii) To study the interscorer reliability of the scale. \iii) To study the test-retest reliability of the scale. Methodology24 TABLE I Sample characteristics (Age, Sex and Education) ——~\ Age in years 1-5 6-10 1-15 Male Female Male Female Male Femail,” Number 42 20 47 21 1 D> 9 21 Age Mean 3520034300 7.75 8.22 13,43 13,05 SD. 112 1.05 1671.44 1771s Education Mean a cre 0:85 72 0100; 342 143 Range : : 0-5 0-4 09 06 The sample consisted of all the children attending the Child Guidance Clinic of Nehru Hospital,, Chandigarh fulfilling the following criteria : (a) Age upto 15 years (b) Referred for Psychological tests (c) Coming with parents (one or both) who could give information about the child (d) Co-operative child. Validity was to be established for the three age groups (1-5, 6-10 and 11-15 years separately.) For obvious reasons, in the clinic, all the possible tests cannot be administered to all the children, Tools : Developmental Screening Test (DST) is a simple quick intelligence test for children “from birth to 15 years of age" and “provides for a brief and fairly de- pendable assessment without requiring the use of perfor- mance tests." There are 88 items distributed according to the age scales 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, 1 year, 1, years, 2 to 13 years at yearly intervals and finally at 15 years. The sources of items are from three Indian studies, the AIISH study (1971), Baroda Longitudinal Study (1971)25 and the NCERT Study (1971). 60% of items can be evalu- ated on the spot and 40% by information given by parents. Nearly '/, of items are on speech development (test devel- oped by 4. Bharath Raj and published by Padmashree, Mysore). ___. Other tests with which its validity had to be established were (a) Malin’s Intelligence Scale for Indian Children (Malin, 1969), (b) Seguin Form Board (Original norms by Cattell 1953) (c) Vineland Social Maturity Scale (Nagpur adaptation by Malin, year not mentioned, and (d) Gesell's Drawing Test (Gesell et al 1949) Bakewin and Bakewin 1960, Verma, Pershad and Kaushal 1972). They are all well known and established tests in the area for children below 15 years of age, and were used wherever applicable and could be possible within the time period. Analysis of Results : Coefficients of correlation were computed for validity, interscorer as well as for test-retest reliabilities. Results : Correlations between DST and other tests for the three age groups are shown in Table II.26 TABLE-IT Validity of the test for the three age groups Age in years 1-5 6-10 11-15 GD.T. Number 16 44 21 r -71964** .8902** -8884** VSMS Number 62 49 17 r .9968** .9089** -8586 SFB Number 24 28 21525 -8699** MISIC Number 16 r -8362** All these correlations are high positive and significant beyond. .01 level, for all the three groups. This suggests that DST is a valid tool for all the three age groups viz., 1-5, 6-10 and 11-15 years. Interestingly, the correlations showed that with GDT and SFB greater agreement was in higher age groups while with VSMS, greater was in the lower age groups. *ST showed almost equally high -orre- lations with performance as with verbal intelligence tests, which adds to the validity of the scale. Interscorer reliability : Two trained clinical psy- chologists (SKV and DP) administered the scale to 23 chil- dren (10 of them males) in the age range of 1'/,to 13 years, independently. The correlation was found as high as .928 which is positive, significant, very high and satisfactory. a27 Test-Retest reliablility : With a gap of 4 weeks, the DST was readministered to a group of 23 children admit- ted in a school for special education. The test-retest reli- ability was obtained as 0.98 which is positive significant and satisfactory. Discussion : On the whole, DST was found to show satisfactory reliability and validity for 1-15 years age group. Itconfirms the claim of Bharath Raj that it is a measure of mental development of children from birth to 15 years of age and "provides for a brief and fairly dependable assess- ment without requiring the use of performance tests.” He had originally established the validity on 35 children only (.85 with SFB and .75 with Columbia Mental Maturity Scale) 19 of them boys and all in the age group of 4-11 years, from nursery to Vth standard, which was consid- ered quite unsatisfactory evidence of the validity (Verma 1977). The present study had used a larger sample,, di- vided the whole group (1-15 years) into three relatively more homogeneous age groups and still found it to be valid, correlating high with both verbal and performance tests of intelligence. Both interscorer and test retest reliabilities were found to be high and satisfactory. The fact that all the three persons (authors) were trained clinical psychologists, atleast partly could account for the high degree of correlations. These present authors were familiar with the items of the scale—as they formed part of other well known scales also. But for a person, not so trained, there might be some difficulties in fully compre- hending some of the items listed in the test. Like the other tests, e.g., Vineland Social Maturity Scale where some ex- iplanations and examples are given, perhaps in the manual ‘of DST also such things can be added. Then there is likelySFB-6 to 10 years age gr 5 years of age. As the age. tion with GDT also ii Acknowledgement The authors are gi Psychiatry, Postgraduate and Research and Principal, cial Education, Chandigarh for couragement to carry out the w present study. 1. Bawkin, H. and Bakwin, R.M. of Behaviour Disorders in Chil Saunders Co. 2. Bharath Raj, J. (year not mentioned) tal Screening Test, Mysore, Padmashree, 3. Cattell, R. B. (1953) A Guide to Mental London Press Ltd. London. 4. Gesell, A. et al (1949) Gesell Developmental York, Psychol. 5. Malin, A.J. USS) Malis inl eae dren, Manual, Nagpur. Nagpur Chil Malin, A.J. (year not mentioned) Vineland Scale. Nagpur Child Guidance Clinic. Verma, S. K. (1977) Test review-Manual for Screening Test by Bharath Raj. Indian J. of Cli ogy. 4: 209-211. Verma, S. K. Pershad, Dwarka and Kaushal, Drawing Tests as a Measure of Intelligence retarded Children, Indian J. Ment. Retard. 5