Browsing by Author "Mitchell, Joanie Marie"

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    Psychometric evaluation of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, Second Edition (KABC-II) in rural South Africa
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015-12) Mitchell, Joanie Marie; Tomlinson, Mark; Rochat, Tamsen; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Department of Psychology.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT : Millions of children living in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are not fulfilling their cognitive potential. Early interventions may aid in alleviating the effects of risk factors and thus promote cognitive development. To determine the effectiveness of these interventions, accurate measures of cognitive development are necessary. Measuring the intelligence of children in LMICs has often been contentious, as traditional intelligence quotient (IQ) assessments have largely been used. Traditional IQ assessments measure acquired knowledge that is known to be biased towards school exposure. Recently, given improvements in our understanding of the human brain, there has been a shift towards using assessments that measure cognitive processing, i.e. the skill-set necessary to solve tasks. Given their ability to measure cognitive potential to learn, rather than acquired learning, these assessments are deemed more culture fair. The KABC-II is an example of such an assessment and is increasingly used in LMICs. The KABC-II consists of four scale indexes evaluating performance (Sequential, Learning, Simultaneous and Planning) and has often been translated and adapted for these contexts. However, studies examining the psychometric properties of these adapted assessments are sparse. The primary aim of this research was to evaluate the psychometric properties of a translated and adapted version of the KABC-II in a sample of healthy, isiZulu-speaking children of primary school-age in rural South Africa. The evaluation was achieved through two objectives; firstly by evaluating performance on the adapted KABC-II and secondly through examining whether the underlying structure of the KABC-II was maintained. Using data from a sub-sample of 382 children (part of a larger project), performance on the KABC-II was evaluated using descriptive statistics. The underlying factor structure of the battery was examined using confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses. The confirmatory factor analysis showed two models representing plausible structures of the KABC-II which were good fits to the data. One model included an overall factor (as in the original KABC-II) and the other excluded an overall factor. Within the model including the overall factor, correlations between two of the four scale indexes (Simultaneous and Planning) were shown to be high. This strong association was confirmed in the exploratory factor analysis, where the subtests of these scale indexes emerged as one factor. Performances on these scale indexes were the weakest, with the Planning Scale subtests having the lowest means. The low means may indicate that the Planning Scale might not be optimally culturally appropriate in this context, but could alternatively suggest a deficit in executive functioning skills required to complete these tasks. A lack of executive functioning skills may be due to the presence of biological and psychosocial risk factors, including maternal education. In conclusion, the KABC-II was an appropriate assessment to use in this rural Zulu context, as it was appropriately translated, adapted and piloted. Future research should aim to establish the strength of the overall factor and the appropriateness of the Planning Scale subtests in LMICs. Further research should be done to investigate the effects of biological and psychosocial risk factors on cognitive development. Such studies may inform interventions which could lead to improvements in the cognitive development of children in rural South Africa and other LMICs.