[An experiment for testing the psychometric equivalence of the non verbal instruction of the adaptive intelligence...

The Adaptive Intelligence Diagnosticum's manual additionally offers an optional non verbal instruction for seven of the fourteen subtests. There has, however, been no empirical evidence with regard to the psychometric equivalence of the tests with both versions of instruction. Therefore, an experiment was carried out. A total of 120 children (aged 6-8 years) were randomized into control (verbal instruction) and experimental groups (non verbal instruction). In the one subtest "Competence in Realism" nearly 50 percent of the children could not understand the relevant non verbal instruction. However, when only those children who did understand the non verbal instruction of a subtest are taken into account, no significant difference is observed, neither with respect to the mean of the scores nor to their standard deviation. In this respect, the test of equivalence has insofar been successful.