Kaufman Assessment Battery For Children - Test Format

Test Format

The KABC-II has 18 subtests of two types: core and supplementary. Before testing the examiner decides which model to follow: Luria or CHC. The subtests are grouped into 4 or 5 scales depended on the age and interpretive model chosen. Luria’s model consists of four scales: Sequential Processing Scale, Simultaneous processing Scale, Learning Ability and Planning Ability. CHC model renames these: Short Term Memory (Gsm), Visual Processing (Gv), Long Term Storage and Retrieval (Glr) and Fluid Reasoning (Gf) plus an additional 5th scale Crystallised Ability (Gc).

KABC-II scales and their subtests include:

Simultaneous/Gv

• Triangles: the child assembles several foam triangles to match a picture.
• Face Recognition: the child looks a photographs of one or two faces for 5 seconds and then selects the correct face/faces shown in a difference pose from a selection.
• Block Counting: The child counts the number of blocks in a picture of a stack of blocks, some of the blocks are partially hidden.
• Conceptual Thinking: The child selects one picture from a set of 4 or 5 which does not belong with the set.
• Rover: The child moves a toy dog to a bone on a grid that contains several obstacles trying to find the quickest path to the bone.
• Gestalt Closure: The child mentally fills in the gaps in a partially completed inkblot drawing and names or describes the object/action depicted in the drawing.
• Pattern Reasoning (ages 5 and 6).
• Story Completion (ages 5 and 6).

Sequential/Gsm

• Word Order: The assessor reads the names of common objects, the child the touches a series of silhouettes of these objects in the same order they were read out in.
• Number Recall: The assessor reads a string of numbers and the child repeats the string in the same order. The strings range from 2 to 9 digits.
• Hand Movements: the child copies a series of taps the examiner makes on the table with the fist, palm or side of the hand.

Planning/Gf

• Pattern Reasoning (ages 7–18): the child is shown a series of stimulus that form a logical linear pattern with one stimulus missing. The child selects the missing stimulus from several options.

• Story Completion (ages 7–18): the child is shown a row of pictures that tell a story, some pictures are missing. The child selects several pictures from a selection that are needed to complete the story and places them in the correct location.

Learning/Glr

• Atlantis: the assessor teaches the child nonsense names for pictures of fish, shells and plants. The child then has to point to the correct picture when read out the nonsense name.
• Atlantis Delayed: the child repeats the Atlantis subtest 15–25 minutes later to demonstrate delayed recall.
• Rebus: the assessor teaches the child the word or concept associated with a rebus (drawing) and the child reads aloud phrases and sentences composed of these rebuses.
• Rebus Delayed: the chid repeats the Rebus subtest 15–25 minutes later to demonstrate delayed recall of paired associates.

Knowledge(Gc) included in the CHC model only

• Riddles: the examiner says several characteristics of a concrete or abstract verbal concept, and the child has to point to it or name it.
• Expressive Vocabulary: measures the Childs ability to say the correct names of objects and illustrations.
• Verbal Knowledge: the child selects from an array for 6 pictures the one that corresponds to a vocabulary word or answers a general information question.

KABC-II yields two general intelligence composite scores: Mental Processing Index (MPI; Luria’s model) and Fluid-Crystallised Index (FCI; CHC model). The Luria model takes 25–60 minutes to administer while the CHC model takes 30–75 minutes to administer depending on the child’s age.