On the correlation between children's performances on electronic board tasks and nonverbal intelligence test measures

In this study it was investigated whether a tangible electronic console (TagTiles) can be used in principle to address a range of cognitive skills by examining the underlying basic psychometric properties of TagTiles tasks. This is a precursor to an intervention study on the impact of TagTiles on cognitive development or an instrument development study. The tasks implemented on the console consisted of abstract visual patterns, which were intended to target perception, spatial knowledge representation, eye-hand coordination, reasoning and problem solving. The results of a pilot study (N = 10, children aged 8-10) and an experiment (N = 32, children aged 8-10) are presented. Correlations between scores on TagTiles tasks on the one hand and a selection of WISC-IIINL performance subtests, Raven's progressive matrices and RAKIT's Memory Span on the other hand, were calculated. The results indicate that the TagTiles tasks cover similar skills as the applied WISC-IIINL subtests, demonstrated by the moderate to large correlations between performance scores on sets of TagTiles tasks and sets of WISC-IIINL tasks. The combined TagTiles task scores were also significantly correlated with the aggregated WISC-IIINL subtest scores. Significant correlations were found between the TagTiles tasks and the Raven test scores, though for the RAKIT Memory Span no significant correlation with TagTiles tasks was found. After further refinement and validation, in particular with a larger sample size, the tasks can be applied to provide an indication of children's skill levels, offering the benefits of a self motivating testing method to children, and avoiding inconsistencies in administration. As such, the tasks may become an effective tool for the training and assessment of nonverbal skills for children.