Details

General Information

The Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales, Fifth Edition(SB5)is a contemporary assessment with a rich tradition, which began in 1916 when Lewis Terman completed his American revision of the Binet-Simon Scale (1905, 1908). Through various editions, this assessment has become widely known and is acknowledged as the standard for intelligence measurement.

As a battery of cognitive tests, the SB5 advances the assessment of strengths and weaknesses in the cognitive processes of students who may be evaluated for learning disabilities. The SB5 supports early prediction of emerging learning disabilities in children as young as four years old. Author research has identified special predictive composite scores for identifying both Reading and Math disabilities. Information on these composites is available in the Interpretive Manual. As a battery of cognitive tests, the SB5 advances the assessment of strengths and weaknesses in the cognitive processes of students who may be evaluated for learning disabilities. The SB5 supports early prediction of emerging learning disabilities in children as young as four years old. Author research has identified special predictive composite scores for identifying both Reading and Math disabilities. Information on these composites is available in the Interpretive Manual

The SB5 provides comprehensive coverage of five factors of cognitive ability:

• Fluid Reasoning
• Knowledge
• Quantitative Reasoning
• Visual-Spatial Processing
• Working Memory

Uses

The SB5 helps to diagnose a wide variety of developmental disabilities and exceptionalities and may also be useful in:

• Clinical and neuropsychological assessment
• Early childhood assessment
• Psychoeducational evaluations for special education placements
• Adult social security and workers’ compensation evaluations
• Providing information for interventions such as IFSPs, IEPs, career assessment, industrial selection, and adult neuropsychological treatment
• Forensic contexts
• Research on abilities and aptitudes

Administration

Testing begins in Item Book 1 with the routing subtests. The start points for two routing subtests in Item Book 1 are determined by age or estimated ability level. Nonverbal Fluid Reasoning routes to the appropriate difficulty level in Item Book 2 (Nonverbal), while Verbal Knowledge does so for Item Book 3 (Verbal). The remaining eight subtests (four nonverbal and four verbal) are then measured in Item Books 2 and 3.

Scoring

The SB5 can be scored by hand or scored with the SB5 ScoringPro. ScoringPro is a Windows^®-based software program that provides consistency in raw score conversion, an extended score report, a graphical report, and a brief, narrative summary report with guidelines and suggestions based on well-established principles of assessment. The report can be exported to a word-processing file for editing as necessary.

Minimum System Requirements

• Microsoft^® Windows 98/NT^®4.0/Me/2000/XP
• Pentium^® 200 MHz processor
• 64 MB RAM (96 MB recommended)
• CD-ROM or DVD drive
• 100 MB free hard disk space
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 or higher

Interpretation

At the most granular level of the norm-referenced scores are the 10 subtest scores (scaled scores have a mean of 10, SD of 3, score range 1–19). These subtest scores combine to form four types of composite scores: factor index, domain, abbreviated, and full scale (each with scaled score means of 100, SD of 15, score range 40–160). Two subtests (one verbal, the other its nonverbal complement) combine to form each factor index. There are two domain scales: Nonverbal IQ (NVIQ) (combines the five nonverbal subtests) and Verbal IQ (VIQ) (combines the five verbal subtests). Two routing subtests combine to form the Abbreviated Battery IQ (ABIQ). Finally, the Full Scale IQ (FSIQ) combines all 10 subtests. The Change-Sensitive Scores (CSS) use item response theory scaling to convert the raw score totals on the composite scales described above into criterion-referenced levels of ability. These scales, as with the norm-referenced scores, have excellent measurement properties. Because the CSSs reference absolute levels of ability, they provide a way to compare changes in an individual’s scores over time.

Average scores range from the 2-year-old level (about 430) to the adult level (about 520). All of the SB5 items have been calibrated to this scale, and the difficulty of each item has a location along that scale. The scores are particularly useful for the evaluation of extreme performance levels. The SB5 also offers age-equivalent scores derived from CSSs, along with a CSS-based abbreviated battery score making use of raw scores from the Nonverbal Reasoning and Verbal Knowledge subtests. Finally, the Interpretive Manual describes a hand scoring procedure for deriving an Extended IQ (EXIQ) that allows for scores between both 10–39 and 161–225.

Technical Information

Normative data for the SB5 were gathered from 4,800 individuals between the ages of 2 and 85+ years. The normative sample closely matches the 2000 U.S. Census. Bias reviews were conducted on all items for the following variables: gender, ethnicity, culture, religion, region, and socioeconomic status. Additionally, the SB5 was co-normed with the Bender^® Visual-Motor Gestalt Test, Second Edition (page 125), and the Test Observation Form (page 142). Reliabilities for the SB5 are very high. For the FSIQ, NVIQ, and VIQ, reliabilities range from .95 to .98 (average internal consistency composite reliability, across all age groups). Reliabilities for the Factor Indexes range from .90 to .92. For the 10 subtests, reliabilities range from .84 to .89. Concurrent and criterion validity data were obtained using the SB-IV,SB-LM, WJ III^®, UNIT™, Bender-Gestalt II, WPPSI-R^®,WAIS^®-III, WIAT^®-II, and WISC-III^®.