Differential Effectiveness of Receptive Language and Visual-Motor Assessments in Identifying Academically Gifted Elementary School Students

Abstract

A sample of 50 gifted elementary students were administered two receptive language tests (the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and its revised version) and two visual-motor tests (the Bender Visual-motor Gestalt Test and the Developmental Test of Visual-motor Integration). These scores were then evaluated against an achievement test battery. The receptive language and visual-motor measures did not account for a significant amount of the achievement test's variance, although some significant correlations were obtained. These results and their implications for identifying gifted elementary students are discussed.