The assessment of analogical thinking modifiability among regular, special education, disadvantaged, and mentally retarded children

The objectives of the current study were (a) to develop a measure of children's analogical thinking modifiability (CATM) based on the Feuerstein, Rand, and Hoffman (1979) theory of dynamic assessment of cognitive modifiability, (b) to compare the performance of groups assumed to be differentially modified by intervention, (c) to compare CATM performance with performance on a conventional test, and (d) to study qualitative changes after a learning process. Subjects were disdvantaged, regular, and special education kindergarten children (N=140), and mentally retarded children (N=20). The CATM was administered together with the Ravens Colored Progressive Matrices (RCPM) in a balanced order. Disadvantaged and regular children achieved higher gain scores than other groups in both none-or-all and partial credit methods (p < 01). The MR and the special education groups showed small gains according to the none-or-all credit method; however, according to the partial credit method, the MR group showed high gains and the special education group a performance decrease. Performance scores on the CATM were higher than on the RCPM, especially in comparison to the B₈-B₁₂ items-differences reach a peak of 61% and 67% for the disadvantaged and regular groups, respectively. Qualitative analysis indicated that form mistakes were most resistant to change, whereas color mistakes were most easy to modify. Results were explained within Feuerstein's theoretical framework of cognitive modifiability. Impaired cognitive functions as well as analytic versus synthetic processes were suggested to explain group differences.