The Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children

The psychological evaluation includes among its variants the evaluation of intelligence, and this has been especially important in the field of childhood. Here we will talk about the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children.

This evaluates not only the knowledge of the child, but also how he processes the information, that is, his processing style, which can be sequential or simultaneous. We are going to know the characteristics of the battery and what components it evaluates.

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Kaufman Children's Assessment Battery: Features

The Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, also called the K-ABC, was designed by Kaufman and Kaufman in 1983.

It includes a series of tests that measure intelligence and academic performance.. It is applied to children between 2.6 and 12.5 years old, and its theoretical foundation is based on cognitive and neuropsychological models.

This battery is interested in the style and type of processing of the subject more than in the final result. That is, it focuses above all on information processing.

The subscales that the battery includes are five: sequential processing, simultaneous processing, mental processing, cognition, and the nonverbal scale. Let's get to know them in detail.

battery scales

The Kaufman Children's Assessment Battery includes two types of global scales. Let's see what they are.

1. mind processing

Measures intellectual functioning, that is, the type of information processing used by the subject. This encompasses two types of processing: sequential and simultaneous. The scale represents the integration of these two processing styles.

Its measurement provides a good overall estimate of mental processing capacity or intelligence; According to the authors themselves, "intelligence is complex and, probably, the most intelligent behaviors result from an integration of sequential and simultaneous processes."

1.1 Sequential processing

Measures the child's ability to solve problems whose elements are presented successively, one after another. The stimuli are temporally and linearly related to the preceding ones. This type of processing is made up of three subtests, and requires analytical, successive or serial skills.

1.2. simultaneous processing

Evaluate the subject's ability to synthesize the information necessary to solve the problems presented. The different stimuli must be integrated and synthesized, simultaneously, to reach the appropriate solution.

It is made up of 7 subtests and requires holistic or gestalt skills.

2. academic knowledge

This scale assesses the knowledge and skills acquired at school or, more informally, in the environment. That is to say, It is intended to measure the knowledge acquired and the level of school learning.

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nonverbal scale

The battery also includes a non-verbal scale for children with hearing difficulties or language problems. This scale is made up of different sequential and simultaneous processing subtests. The subtests are grouped into three blocks by age:

• Between 2 and 4 years: includes the tasks of recognition of faces, hand movements and triangles.
• from 5 years: includes the tasks of hand movements, triangles, analog matrices and spatial memory.
• Between 6 and 12 years: includes the tasks of hand movements, triangles, analog matrices, spatial memory and photo series.

The non-verbal scale can be administered through gestures, using a minimum of verbal instructions; In addition, it is also answered by gestures.

Scoring and Interpretation

The battery uses IQ (Intelligence Quotient) scores. To have an indicative idea in relation to your scores, an IQ less than 85 is indicative of impairment (it would be 1 standard deviation below the mean).

Each item in the Kaufman Children's Assessment Battery is scored 0 or 1. On the other hand, there is no bonus or "plus" for responding quickly, although there is only one test with a specific response time, that of triangles. Points are also not obtained if an item is partially answered or resolved.

In the Spanish adaptation of the test, the manual offers tables that allow direct scores to be transformed into scalar scores, percentiles, and equivalent ages.

On the other hand, the subtests of the mental processing scale have a mean of 10 and a standard deviation of 3; On the other hand, those of the academic knowledge scale have a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. In addition, the mental, sequential and simultaneous processing scales also have a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15..

• You may be interested in: "theories of human intelligence"

Kaufman K-BIT

In addition to the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, there is another battery designed to carry out a first screening, of rapid application and easy correction. It measures two types of intelligence: verbal and non-verbal.

Its application age is from 4 years and up to 90. This test is an excellent measure of general intelligence, which includes two subtests:

• Vocabulary: expressive vocabulary and definitions.
• Matrices: drawings and abstract figures (eliminate cultural influence).

Bibliographic references:

• Kaufmann, A. & Kaufmann, N. (1997). Kaufman Evaluation Battery for Children [Battery of evaluation of Kaufman for children]. Madrid: TEA.
• Cohen, R.J., Swerdlik, M.E. (2002) Psychological Testing and Assessment. McGraw-Hill. Madrid.
• Matos, M.A. and Mustaca, A.E. (2005). Applied behavioral analysis (ACA) and pervasive developmental disorders (PDD): its evaluation in Argentina. INTERDISCIPLINARY, 22,(1), 59 - 76.
• Amador, J.A., Forns, M. and Kirchner, T. (2006). Kaufman's Assessment Battery for Children: K-ABC. Work document. Faculty of Psychology - University of Barcelona