A Canadian study compared the rate of cognitive disabilities in 156 relatives of 49 individuals with autism to that found in 55 relatives of 18 individuals with mental retardation. No differences were found; however, female and low IQ individuals were found to have higher family histories of cognitive disabilities. (Author/CR)

Statistical models for school effectiveness rankings are assessed. An analysis of linear models with fixed regression parameters and models with separate regression parameters for each school is presented. In the first case, the regression lines are parallel and the ranking of the schools is the same for all student backgrounds. In the second…

Reports on the findings of a comparative study of mental abilities of Mexican and American children. Discusses age, sex, social class, and urban-rural differences, as well as cultural differences. (SS)

A study examined the impact of a gifted enrichment program on 80 Israeli students (grades 4-8) from disadvantaged neighborhoods. After program participation, girls' performance on an intelligence test was higher than boys'. While girls started out with slightly lower scores, they ended up with slightly higher scores than boys. (Contains…

The pattern of honors degrees awarded in British universities in 1967, 1978, and 1979 shows women receiving lower percentages of both top and weakest honors degrees. Various explanations are considered, and it is concluded that the answer is in the differences in distribution of ability measured by intelligence tests. (MSE)

Confirmatory Factor Analysis was used to test first- and second-order factor models on cognitive abilities and their invariance across male and female samples. Subjects were a stratified random sample of 234 male and 225 female 15-year-old students in Singapore attending Secondary 3 (the equivalent of grade 9). Four first-order factors were found…

R. J. Sternberg and others found that the types of behaviors reported by laypersons as characterizing different types of intelligence varied across the different groups tested, and that a person's concept of intelligence affects the manner in which he or she evaluates the intelligence of others. Two experiments by Sternberg et al. were replicated.…

Adolescents, ages 11-12 and 13-14, were tested for maturity of judgment about stability-change situations and about time perspective. (CP)