By GINA STAFFORD

969 words

23 April 1999

11:24 AM

Associated Press Newswires

APRS

English

(c) 1999. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - In describing the need to be able to test intelligence without using words, Dr. R. Steve McCallum refers to the familiar notion of America as a melting pot.

In describing the nonverbal IQ test McCallum has coauthored, an official with the test's publishing company uses words like "breakthrough" and "an industry standard."

McCallum says development of the test was spurred by the fact America's melting pot is bubbling with more diversity than ever, with one notable effect spilling into schools. Dozens of different languages - as many as 200 in Chicago schools - are being spoken by America's schoolchildren.

An educational psychologist and professor and chairman of the University of Tennessee's Psychoeducational Studies Unit, McCallum collaborated with Dr. Bruce Bracken, psychology professor and director of Child and Family Studies at the University of Memphis. They've teamed up on various projects since meeting in graduate school.

Speaking by telephone from Virginia, where he'd traveled to make a presentation on their Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test, Bracken said its approach was overdue.

"We'd seen the need for it a long time ago, and the situation with lots of languages being spoken in lots of cities is only increasing," he said. "I did a workshop in Nashville - sleepy little country-and-Western Nashville - a couple of years ago, and I saw this article in the Nashville Banner that said 40 different languages are spoken there.

"A nonverbal test like this just seemed like a natural."

Also known as the UNIT, the test is published by Houghton Mifflin's Riverside Publishing Co. in Chicago. Introduced in April 1998, the UNIT set off a nationwide buzz in the testing field.

Test materials first went to press in July. The UNIT is already in its third printing, according to John Wasserman, Riverside's director for psychological assessment.

"It tests different aspects, the depth and breadth of intelligence, and so far as we know, it's the only multidimensional, 100 percent nonverbal test in existence available to school psychologists," said Wasserman.

"Early research also suggests this may be one of the most fair intelligence tests ever put together."

Fairness problems go beyond the lack of a common and equally familiar language among test subjects from divergent backgrounds, McCallum notes.

IQ tests dependent on verbal expression have to be considered susceptible to the influences of cultural differences, socioeconomic status, geographic placement and other factors that affect word usage, McCallum said.

"Besides dealing with language diversity, this test is designed to better serve a lot of at-risk populations for whom language simply is a barrier."

Such as the deaf or hard of hearing, as well as autistic children or "selective mutes," McCallum said. Selective mutes are children who, for example, talk at home but not at school, he explained.A decade to develop

Development of the test - for children aged 5 through 17 years 11 months old - began in 1987.

The marathon standardization process involved administering the test to more than 3,800 children nationwide.

"The database has to represent the population. If 20 percent are from the Southwest, 20 percent of the standard sample must come from the Southwest," McCallum said.

Validity testing is necessary to make sure IQ findings by the UNIT are reasonably close to acknowledged industry standards, McCallum said.

"You have to compare a 17-year-old to all other 17-year-olds," he added.Basics of the UNIT

A child taking the UNIT performs tasks using colored cubes, symbol-imprinted cards and pages of large-block grids. Each bears a different dot pattern. Cubes are half green, half white. On the rest, white is a background shade and images are green or black. McCallum said eye experts confirmed that distinctions between all three shades could be made by those with color-vision problems.

There are six subtests: three that evaluate memory - symbolic, object and spatial - and three that examine reasoning ability using cube design, mazes and "analogic reasoning." The latter might involve showing the child a visual pattern. Recognition of the pattern and the relationship of its elements are demonstrated through selection of another pattern from a set of answer choices.

But the test examiner can't tell the subject that - not verbally, at least. Examiners are trained in "standardized gestures" for instruction.

Experts - in gender, race, national heritage and other distinctive qualifications - were sought as the developers eliminated potential bias. As a result, McCallum said, an image said to be sacred to Native Americans was deleted. Statistical analyses were conducted that showed no perceptible difference in the testing images based on racial or ethnic background, Wasserman said.Getting the word out

Responding to interest from school systems, McCallum and Bracken each have made about a dozen presentations this year all over the country. In July, McCallum will travel to Graz, Austria, to address the International Test Commission.

Closer to home, the state Department of Education has asked the authors to discuss the test with state officials overseeing gifted education.

"The Department of Education is responding to the Office of Civil Rights' charge that there are not enough minority gifted kids identified," he said.

Asked his opinion on the test's significance, Bracken is modest.

"I think it's an important contribution but not revolutionary," he said. "The way I look at it, psychologists have to have tools, but we've been using one tool too long that doesn't do the job best.

"Steve and I have developed a refined tool. Like the difference in using a claw hammer for all jobs - when sometimes you need a sledge hammer or just a tack hammer - Steve and I have created the `hammer' that's better for this kind of work."

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