Interrelationship among intelligence, adaptive behavior, and academic achievement of elementary students referred for individual evaluation

This study investigated the relationship between adaptive behavior and achievement when intelligence was statistically controlled. A random sample of 70 students of ages 6 through 11 was selected from a pool of subjects referred for individual psychological/educational evaluation. The sample, which consisted of students in a single, countywide school district in West Central Indiana, was stratified into two equal sized groups of ages 6 through 8 and 9 through 11. All subjects were administered the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children--Revised, the Vineland Social Maturity Scale, and the Wide Range Achievement Test regression analysis showed a significant relationship between the composite of predictors including verbal IQ, performance IQ, full scale IQ, and deviation social quotient, and the criterion of reading and arithmetic, considered separately. Subsequent tests showed a significant relationship between deviation social quotient and reading and arithmetic, considered separately, when verbal IQ, performance IQ, and full scale IQ were controlled by the step down multiple regression procedure. Deviation social quotient accounted for approximately 6 and 8 per cent of the total variance in reading and arithmetic, respectively, when verbal, performance, and full scale IQs were statistically controlled.Present, results were considered tentative pending verification by further investigation of the relationship between adaptive behavior and academic achievement. Results were in opposition to prevalent adaptive behavior ideology, which suggested that adaptive behavior was an out-of-school dimension which had no relationship with academic achievement. Results tentatively suggested that consideration of adaptive behavior scores, which seemingly enhanced the prediction of reading arid arithmetic beyond that provided by intelligence, would help school psychologists formulate more responsible placement decisions. Results suggested the need for the development of new, more objective adaptive behavior assessment instruments. The tentative minding of a relationship between the Vineland, a nonschool test of adaptive behavior, and reading and arithmetic, when intelligence was controlled, presented the possibility that adaptive behavior is a generalized, nonenvironmentally specific attribute. This issue hopefully will be addressed in subsequent studies.Thesis (D. Ed.