This study, involving five experienced and trained speech language pathologists, categorized the elicited imitations of five profoundly and five severely prelingually hearing-impaired subjects using the Phonetic Level Evaluation. Failure to obtain acceptably high levels of reliability suggests that this measure may not yet be an accurate and…

Twenty students and 45 adults with visual impairments or blindness were administered a test of tactile concentration and short-term memory involving the reproduction of the order of finger stimulation using the Finger Knocking Box. Reliability and validity scores indicated encouraging results with use of the instrument. (JDD)

Analysis of spontaneous language samples of 10 children (ages 8-9) with specific language impairments found that interviews were a reliable, valid, and efficient assessment context, eliciting the same profile of behaviors as a freeplay context without altering diagnostic classifications. (Author/JDD)

The visual acuity of 8 children, aged 2-7, with low vision and multiple handicaps was effectively tested using the Teller Acuity Cards and a preferential-looking procedure with operant modification. This inexpensive procedure was found to be suitable for at-home testing by itinerant vision specialists in developing countries or rural areas. (DB)

Cognitive holding power is defined as a characteristic of the learning setting that presses students into different kinds of cognitive activity. Development of an instrument to measure cognitive holding power and studies of the instrument's reliability with over 1,500 Australian technical college students are reported. (SLD)

A set of Q-sort items to assess individual differences in infant-mother attachment was adapted for a Hispanic population of low-SES background. Completion of the Q-sort by observers and inner-city Hispanic mothers and testing of 43 infants with the Ainsworth Strange Situation established the Q-set's validity and indicated moderate reliability for…

Results from a survey of 62 students (ages 8-13) with mild mental retardation and 62 students without retardation indicated that high percentages of both groups understood what loneliness means; a loneliness questionnaire yielded satisfactory internal reliability; and boys but not girls with mental retardation reported more loneliness than did…

Effects of item wording on questionnaire reliability and validity were studied, using 280 undergraduate business students who completed a questionnaire comprising 4 item types: (1) regular; (2) polar opposite; (3) negated polar opposite; and (4) negated regular. Implications of results favoring regular and negated regular items are discussed. (SLD)

The reliability and validity of the Working with Young Children and Their Families instrument were tested with 101 of 192 occupational therapists surveyed. The form proved to be a reliable way of measuring the outcome of workshops to improve therapists' competence in working with families of children with special needs. (SK)

The Children's Sex Role Inventory was tested on third, fourth, sixth, and seventh graders. Reliability was established through internal consistency of femininity and masculinity scales and stable test-retest reliabilities. Validity of the scales was evident in gender differences on both scales. (BC)

The construct validity of hypothesized survey items and data reduction procedures for selected psychosocial constructs frequently used in breast cancer screening research were investigated in telephone interviews with randomly selected samples of 1,184 and 903 women and a sample of 169 Hispanic clinic clients. Validity of the constructs is…

Comparison of scores from a normative sample of 880 children and 276 sexually abused children on the Child Sexual Behavior Inventory (CSBI), a checklist for 2- through 12-year-old children, supports the reliability and validity of the instrument. The CSBI is directly related to specific features of sexual abuse. (SLD)

Structural equation models of the same construct collected on different occasions are evaluated in 2 studies involving the evaluation of 157 college instructors over 8 years and data for over 2,200 high school students over 4 years for the Youth in Transition Study. Results challenge overreliance on simplex models. (SLD)

Forty prototypical descriptions representing 4 aptitude domains and 4 talent fields were rated by 2,343 intermediate-level pupils and their teachers, and indices of interpeer agreement were computed. A majority of the prototypes maintained acceptable interpeer agreement levels. Interpeer agreement depended primarily on the specific aptitude or…

The reliability and validity of the revised California Psychological Inventory's (CPI) Vector 1 scale, a measure of introversion and extraversion, were studied with 345 college students (109 males and 236 females). Results support the scale as a valid measure of the introversion-extraversion construct of H. G. Gough. (SLD)