McCarthy Scales and inhibition of movement tests for selecting severely mentally-impaired adults for placement in a sheltered workshop.

Thirty-six community-based mentally impaired adults were administered a selection of psychological test instruments, in order to determine which, if any, of the instruments could predict the program placement situations of the subjects. Half of the subject population attended adult-activity or day treatment programs, and half attended work-activity or sheltered workshop programs. On six scales or subtests the workshop group performed significantly better than the day treatment group. These tests were as follows: (a) the Perceptual/Performance Scale of the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities, (b) the Puzzle Solving subtest of the McCarthy Scales, (c) the Verbal Memory, Part 2, subtest of the McCarthy Scales, (d) the Conceptual Grouping subtest of the McCarthy Scales, (e) the Draw-a-Line Slowly test, and (f) the Walk Slowly test. The remainder of the McCarthy Scales and subtests, the Matching Familiar Figures Test, the Three Commissions subtest of the Stanford-Binet, and the Visual-Auditory Learning subtest of the Woodcock-Johnson did not discriminate between the two groups. It was recommended that the six tests that were found to be significant be developed into a discrete test battery which could be easily administered and scored. Program placement recommendations for mentally impaired individuals could then be made based upon performance on this battery of tests rather than upon a global IQ score. Suggestions are made for extending the use of this battery to emotionally and organically impaired individuals as well. It was also concluded that, with a larger sample and proper normative procedures, the McCarthy Scales of children's abilities would be an adequate substitute for the Stanford-Binet for purposes of intelligence testing with mentally impaired adults.PhDQuantitative psychologyClinical PsychologyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162167/1/8920500.pd