Black/white IQ differences: Does age make the difference?

Abstract

Data are presented on racial differences from the norms of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, the recent renorming of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale‐Revised, the Stanford‐Binet IV, and Raven's Progressive Matrices. The premise of the present article is that, while the one standard deviation IQ difference between Black and White adults has remained constant, IQ differences between Black and White children are declining. These data are discussed in the context of previous studies on possible racial bias of IQ tests, as well as marked changes in educational and economic opportunities that have occurred in the United States in the decades since Jensen's (1969) article.

Profile analysis of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, Second Edition, with African American and Caucasian preschool children

“…Preschoolers displayed a 10.8 point difference on the Full Scale IQ, a 10.5 difference on the Verbal IQ, and an 8.9 point difference on the Performance IQ (Tuttle, 1966). The IQ gap also was seen in other measures of cognitive ability (Vincent, 1991). Thorndike et al (1986) found a 10-12 point advantage for Caucasian children from the standardization sample of the Stanford Binet Intelligence Scale, Fourth Edition (SB-IV).…”

“…Given the smallest IQ gap seen in a modern test of intelligence, the K-ABC was seen as an appropriate test to use with an ethnically diverse population (Kaufman & Lichtenberger, 2002). Evidence regarding the closure of the IQ gap in recent years has been mixed with some researchers seeing progress (Vincent, 1991) and others indicating no decrease during the 20 th century (McGurk, 1982;Shuey, 1966).…”

“…However, with the documented mean score difference in intelligence between Caucasian and African American children (Arinoldo, 1981;Edwards & Oakland, 2005;Jensen, 1980;Smith, Duncan, & Lee, 2003;Thorndike, Hagen, & Sattler, 1986;Tuttle, 1966;Vincent, 1991), accurate interpretation of current cognitive ability measures is vital.…”

Changes over time in the black–white difference on mental tests: Evidence from the children of the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth

“…On the other side, Vincent (1991) presented evidence for a narrowing difference in IQ scores from the 1980s, but it was vulnerable to technical criticism (Jensen, 1998). A stronger case has been made for the vocabulary test administered by the General Social Survey.…”

Dynamic testing: Practical solutions to some concerns

“…Changes in IQ test scores are usually linked to educational opportunity, language proficiency and general socioeconomic level, with differential changes in test scores between cultural groups (Claassen, 1997;Vincent, 1991). Where certain culture groups or other subgroups are disadvantaged, an improvement in the socioeconomic and educational opportunities of the disadvantaged group results in increases in the mean group score which are beyond the normal population increases over time (Van de Vijver, 1997;Vincent, 1991).…”