By Wayne Adams, PhD, David Sheslow, PhD
With solid reliability and validity coefficients, the WRAVMA represents one of the most complete, psychometrically sound measures of visual-motor skills for children available today.
Purpose: Evaluate visual-motor skills in individuals ages
Age Range: 3 through to17 yrs
Admin: Individual
Time: 4-10 minutes per subtest
Qualification Level: B
Related Products:
Developmental Test of Visual Perception-2nd Ed.
Motor-Free Visual Perception Test-3
The WRAVMA is a well-standardised tool that provides a reliable, accurate evaluation of visual-motor skills of children and adolescents ages 3-17 years. The WRAVMA assesses three areas using three tests: the Drawing (Visual Motor) Test, the Matching (Visual-Spatial) Test, and the Pegboard (Fine Motor) Test. The norms for each test were derived from the same standardisation sample of 2,600 children, permitting a psychometrically sound comparison of a child's overall visual-motor ability. Although each WRAVMA test can be used individually, all three tests can be administered in combination, yielding a comparison of a child's integrated visual-motor ability with the skill areas of visual-spatial and fine motor abilities.
The three areas were selected because of their relevance to school-related activities. Difficulties performing visual-motor tasks, such as copying from the whiteboard, drawing, or handwriting, can be linked to either fine motor deficits, spatial deficits, and/or to an integration deficit when motor and spatial systems are combined. The WRAVMA is uniquely suited to evaluate visual-motor ability because of its capability of making meaningful psychometric distinctions between important contributing subareas.
The multifactorial nature of the WRAVMA provides a basis for explanations of such common occurrences as a 5 year old whose block building skills are adequate but who cannot write well, or the child who has trouble copying from the whiteboard but performs well on puzzle construction tasks, or the teen who can draw single designs or write individual spelling words well enough, but who shows an obvious deficit in writing a page of text.
The WRAVMA provides a Visual-Motor Integration Composite derived from the three separate subtest assessments of Fine-Motor, Visual-Spatial, and Visual-Motor abilities. A scaled score, standard score, age equivalent, and percentile may be obtained for each of these subtests. Reliability measures of the three subtests of the WRAVMA show internal consistency coefficients exceeding .90 and test-retest reliability coefficients ranging from .81-.91. Construct validity is supported by item separations of .99.
The WRAVMA provides:
- Comprehensive and economical visual-motor assessment.
- Psychometric superiority.
- Extensive child/adolescent age range.
- 4 case studies with Reason for Referral, Relevant Background, Tests Administered, Discussion, and Recommendations.
- Attractive and easy-to-administer materials.
