Brief report: cautions against using the Stanford-Binet-IV to classify high-risk preschoolers

To explore concurrent and predictive validity of the Stanford-Binet: Fourth Edition (SB-IV) by comparing scores on the SB-IV with scores from the Battelle Developmental Inventory (BDI) and later achievement scores in preschoolers at risk due to very low birthweight, and/or intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) and other medical complications.

At ages 3,4, and 5, 92 preschoolers were tested with the SB-IV and BDI as part of an 8-year early intervention follow-up.

The SB-IV and BDI concurrent correlations at ages 3, 4, and 5 were statistically significant (r = .73-.78, p < .0001), as were predictive correlations (r = .58-.85, p < .0001). However, the BDI and SB-IV failed to place the children in the same categories for intervention services. With the BDI as the comparison measure, SB-IV failed to detect 87% of the children who were "delayed" (by BDI) at age 3 and 50% of the "delayed" children at age 5.

Caution is recommended when using the SB-IV to assess high risk for early intervention eligibility.