The auditory-visual integration test: intersensory or temporal-spatial?

Forty-two children, twenty-one boys and twenty-one girls, were tested at the beginning and end of grade one using Birch's auditory-visual integration test (AVIT) and a parallel visual-visual integration test (VVIT). Reading tests were administered at the end of grade one. No significant differences between the means of the two integration tests were observed at the beginning of the year. A differential development of the AVIT and the VVIT resulted in a significant difference between the means at the end of the year when a common variance of 58% was observed between the two tests. At the conclusion of the school year each function correlated significantly with reading (decoding), with the correlation between AVIT and reading being significantly larger than the correlation between VVIT and reading. Implications for the optometric treatment of children with learning disabilities are discussed.