1 Answers
Leiter International Performance Scale or simply Leiter scale is an intelligence test in the form of a strict performance scale. It was designed for children and adolescents ages 2 to 18, although it can yield an intelligence quotient and a measure of logical ability for all ages. The Leiter series of assessments have been produced and published by Stoelting.
Leiter devised an experimental edition of the test in 1929 to assess the intelligence of those with hearing or speech impairment and with non English speaking examinees. This test purports to "provide a nonverbal measure of general intelligence by sampling a wide variety of functions from memory to nonverbal reasoning." A remarkable feature of the Leiter scale is that it can be administered completely without the use of oral language, including instructions, and requires no verbal response from the participant. Without any verbal subtests, the Leiter scale only measures nonverbal intelligence. Because of the exclusion of language, it claims to be more accurate than other tests when testing children who cannot or will not provide a verbal response. This includes children with any of these features: Non native speaking, autism, traumatic brain injury, speech impairment, and hearing problems.
The Leiter scale was mainly used as a nonverbal alternative to the Binet scale, which is verbally weighted. However, it is also used by researchers, and also very frequently by clinicians who assess the "intellectual function of children with pervasive developmental disorders."