Assesses cognitive abilities, sensorimotor skills, and adaptive behavior.

Ths System of Multicultural Pluralistic Assessment is a system for assessing the cognitive abilities, sensorimotor skills, and adaptive behavior of children from diverse cultural backgrounds. Based on the premise that cultural, linguistic, and health factors must be taken into account when assessing a child's performance, SOMPA estimates academic potential by considering these aspects of a child's experience. The test, which is suitable for children ages 5-11, consists of two parts, one for the child and one for the parents. The Parent Interview, available in both English and Spanish, takes place in the home with the child's primary caregiver and has three components: Sociocultural Scales; the Adaptive Behavior Inventory for Children (ABIC); and Health History Inventories. The Student Assessment includes the following tests and tasks: Physical Dexterity Tasks; the Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test; Weight by Height, Visual Acuity, and Auditory Acuity; and either the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-R) or the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI). Student Assessment materials are collected in the school. SOMPA is untimed, but the Parent Interview generally takes about 20 minutes and the Student Assessment activities about an hour. Test results need to be interpreted by a psychologist or a trained assessment team. Separate norms are provided for black, white, and Hispanic children.

For Further Study

Books

McCullough, Virginia. Testing and Your Child: What You Should Know About 150 of the Most Common Medical, Educational, and Psychological Tests. New York: Plume, 1992.

Shore, Milton F., Patrick J. Brice, and Barbara G. Love. When Your Child Needs Testing: What Parents, Teachers, and Other Helpers Need to Know about Psychological Testing. New York: Crossroad, 1992.

Walsh, W. Bruce, and Nancy E. Betz. Tests and Assessment. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990.