THE USE OF THE ILLINOIS TEST OF PSYCHO‐LINGUISTIC ABILITIES ON BRITISH FOUR‐YEAR‐OLD CHILDREN: A NORMATIVE AND FACTORIAL STUDY

Abstract

S ummary . The Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA) was administered to 100 4‐year‐old nursery school children. Although the sample is biased by the inclusion of a disproportionate number of middle‐class children, the scores corresponded closely to those of the American standardisation sample of the same age. Discriminant function analysis indicated a strong relationship between ITPA performance and social class, particularly in the auditory‐vocal channels. Reliability, estimated by internal consistency and standard error, was acceptably high. Examination of subtest intercorrelations by principal components analysis and Varimax rotation indicated that a general linguistic factor accounted for about 45 per cent of the variance. The significance of these findings is discussed in relation to the use of the ITPA for the construction of remedial programmes for handicapped children.