INTELLECTUAL ABILITIES SCREENING (IQ)

* This screening test is only available in selected areas where specialists administer it. Please contact Dawn Heil at mec@mectest or 800-416-8378 with any questions. If you have a form from a school or child facility, please complete it, attach payment, and return it to your administrator.

The SLOSSON INTELLIGENCE SCREENING TEST is widely used for an estimate of a student’s intellectual ability. It is given orally with the student answering questions or sometimes doing some drawings. All math problems are done mentally without paper and pencil. The revised edition is given to those children who are first grade and older with the original edition done with children three to six years old since the norms start at a younger age. Both have good reliability and validity when compared to the full IQ tests as the STANFORD BINET and the WECHSLER but only with the verbal score. These full tests also have a performance score which includes puzzles and visual tasks which are timed and untimed. Then a full score is derived from both the verbal and the performance scores. If a student is weaker in the performance area, the overall IQ score could be lower than shown on the SLOSSON.

The report shows a 95% confidence band for the SIT score which means that if the student were to take this screening test again, it predicts the overall score would fall within this band. Since this is a screening test and is also given to young children, the scores may fluctuate over time. The middle score is the actual score but parents and teachers should be cautious when keeping only one score in mind. This can change with the time of day, how the child feels about the administrator, age, and confidence. It is better to remember the overall functioning level.

It also shows the chronological (actual) age of the student with an estimated mental age. This means the child answered questions more like the mental age than the chronological age. Sometimes with young children, the mental age may look higher than the other scores due to the norming of the test. 

Stanine scores are also given related to functioning levels from low to high. These also correspond to percentiles which are shown on a graph. This also suggests certain strengths and weaknesses as compared to the mental and chronological ages. These are in the areas of comprehension, information, mathematics/quantitative, auditory memory, vocabulary, visual-motor, and similarities/differences. Descriptions of these conceptual areas are given plus overall recommendations for helping students reach their potentials and a book list. 

It is a comprehensive report to estimate the potential or aptitude of a student. It is recommended to do with a DEVELOPMENTAL SCREENING TEST (ages 3-6) or a BRIEF ACHIEVEMENT SCREENING (ages 4-18). If an IQ score shows above age/grade level potential and the developmental/academic tests show just average functioning, it is likely the student should be challenged and given skills above the age level.