Analysis of a short test battery for children

Explored the hierarchical structure of mental abilities by comparing principal component analysis with a hierarchical cluster analysis algorithm on a short test battery for children. This short test battery included the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R), the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT), the Beery Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (VMI) and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT). Scores from 182 children (116 boys and 66 girls) with a mean age of 10.83 were analyzed. The structure of the test battery included general intelligence, attention, academic achievement and perceptual-motor eye-hand coordination. Both the linear principal component analysis and the nonlinear hierarchical clustering analysis confirmed the hierarchical organization of mental abilities.