Description of presentation: This presentation traces the evolution of psychometric theories of intelligence from Spearman's g to contemporary CHC. In addition, it simultaneously tracks the evolution of psychometric tests of intelligence as they relate to psychometric theories. Finally, there is a special emphasis on tracking changes in the AAMR/AAIDD intellectual disability (mental retardation) classification manuals over the same period. It is concluded that despite significant advances in psychometric theories of intelligence and contemporary psychometric intelligence tests, the official 2010 AAIDD manual is significantly behind these developments. The 2010 AAIDD manual is "stuck on g" and has failed to incorporate advances in both psychometric theories and tests of intelligence. A significant intelligence theory--AAIDD ID/MR definition gap exists tat has potential serious consequences for individuals with ID/MR.
Despite the widespread acceptance and recognition of the contemporary CHC (aka Extended Gf-Gc) theory of intelligence by intelligence scholars, a 2002 national panel of MR/ID experts, and the clear movement in applied IQ test development to test batteries grounded in the CHC framework, AAIDD continues to be “stuck on g”
The AAIDD definition of intelligence is out-of-date. A major intelligence theory—AAIDD ID definition gap exists
Contemporary intelligence scholars, experts, and test developers recognize that although g (general intelligence) may exist at the apex of the CHC taxonomy of human cognitive abilities, there are broad (stratum II) abilities that are important (i.e., have differential validities) that can be assessed and, when interpreted appropriately, can provide a more valid and multidimensional picture of an individuals intellectual functioning.
AAIDD’s continued use of the statement (with regard to measurement of multiple cognitive abilities) that “until such measures of multiple intelligences can be assessed reliably and validly, it is the position of AAIDD that intellectual functioning…is best conceptualized and captured by a general factor of intelligence” is simply wrong! Reliable and valid measures of the broad CHC ability domains exist and have been published in most intelligence batteries published from 1989 to 2008.
The AAIDD g-position is at odds with the known heterogeneity of abilities within the ID (and general) population and fails to recognize that although a g-based total composite score may often represent the best single index of a person’s intellectual functioning, often the g-based composite score may lead to inaccurate conclusions regarding a person’s intellectual functioning and in these cases more attention should be focused on the component part scores. The stuck on g position has the potential to result in serious consequences for individuals, such as denial of special education services; denial of SS benefits, and unjust execution as in “Atkins MR/ID death penalty cases”.
“Two clinical psychologists testified for the Commonwealth in rebuttal to [the defense expert’s] testimony. Dr. Lynda J. Hyatt reported that Green had an I.Q. score of 84 on the ‘Ammons & Ammons quick test,’ which placed Green in the category of ‘low average’ mental functioning. Dr. Thomas A. Pasquale evaluated Green’s personality as well as his intellectual functioning. Dr. Pasquale diagnosed depression, alcohol dependency, drug abuse, anti-social personality disorder, and malingering. According to Dr. Pasquale, Green had a full-scale I.Q. score of 74 on the Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale, placing him in the ‘borderline range’ of intellectual functioning.”[4]
“The experts testifying during the evidentiary hearing disagree on whether Green was malingering when he took his IQ tests, and disagreed on how to determine when a person is malingering. However, there is no indication Green would have been malingering at the age of thirteen when he was administered the WISC-R, and received a score of 71. . . The Court finds that Green had no incentive to malinger on the WISC-R, and his score on that test is the best indication of his intellectual functioning as demonstrated on a measure of intellectual functioning prior to the age of eighteen years.”[7]The magistrate judge went on to add,
“Based on all of the evidence presented, this Court finds that Green has met his burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence ‘significantly subaverage intellectual functioning [which originated before the age of 18 years] as demonstrated by performance on a standardized measure of intellectual functioning administered in conformity with accepted professional practice’”.[8]The magistrate judge dropped the ball. First, he should have decided the malingering issue. Second, he was wrong when he ruled that the IQ test score from age 13 sufficed to prove “‘significantly subaverage intellectual functioning [which originated before the age of 18 years] as demonstrated by performance on a standardized measure of intellectual functioning administered in conformity with accepted professional practice’”. The court was quoting from the applicable statute, Virginia Code § 19.2-264.3:1.1, which defines mental retardation as, “a disability, originating before the age of 18 years, characterized concurrently by (i) significantly subaverage intellectual functioning as demonstrated by performance on a standardized measure of intellectual functioning administered in conformity with accepted professional practice . . . and (ii) significant limitations in adaptive behavior”. The statute goes on to state that, “ Assessment of intellectual functioning shall include administration of at least one standardized measure generally accepted by the field of psychological testing and appropriate for administration to the particular defendant being assessed . . . Testing of intellectual functioning shall be carried out in conformity with accepted professional practice” (emphasis added). As with the major definitions of mental retardation, the Virginia statute makes it clear that the assessment of mental retardation requires results from current IQ testing, along with a current assessment of adaptive behavior, coupled with evidence showing onset before age 18. The magistrate judge’s quote left out the highlighted words from the statute, and made it appear that the statute only requires an IQ score from before age 18. This is an example of creative judging, but not good judging.
“Additional errors were suggested by Green’s counsel, during cross-examination, based on how [the prosecution expert] scored specific questions on the test. Further, [one of the Green’s experts] testified that based on the raw data from Green’s WAIS-III test, [the defense expert] would have assigned a score of 72. This Court does not condone re-scoring of IQ tests or adjustment of scores based on an interpretation of the raw data after the fact. [The prosecution expert], as well as other psychologists, are trained in the administration and scoring of IQ tests. It is not for the Court to go behind those scores, and question the psychologists’ conclusions. The statute requires that IQ tests be administered and scored ‘in accordance with accepted professional practice’ . . . Green has not alleged that [the prosecution expert’s] administration of the WAIS-III failed this requirement. Therefore, the score will be accepted as assigned by [the prosecution expert].”[10]
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Kevin McGrew PhD
Educational/School Psych.
IAP (www.iapsych.com)
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http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=08-9156
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See prior posts regarding this book (which I read and gave two thumbs
up - click on BOOK REVIEW label to find. Notice of potential bias--I
received a free copy of the book from the author AFTER I first
mentioned it at the ICDP blog. Link below.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/218130
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More on SCOTUS Wood v Allen decision.
To: CEDP National <cedp_national_office@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [CEDP] In a first test for court watchers, Sotomayor upholds death sentence
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp-dyn/content/ article/2010/ 01/20/AR20100120 04599.html In a first test for court watchers, Sotomayor upholds death sentence
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 21, 2010The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the death penalty for an Alabama inmate whose attorney declined to present evidence about the man's mental deficiencies to a jury deciding his fate.The 7 to 2 ruling was notable because it was written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, her first full opinion on capital punishment since she joined the court. She said that while the wisdom of the lawyer's decision might be "debatable," it was not unreasonable to think he had made a strategic decision that kept out more damaging evidence about his client.
The ruling came as the court indicated that a long-awaited decision in another case might be at hand. The justices took the unusual step of adding a session Thursday to issue opinions, prompting speculation that it might be ready to announce its much-anticipated ruling about the role of corporate spending in election campaigns.
The court never says in advance what it will announce, but the political world has been awaiting the court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The case, first argued last spring, was reargued in September to consider whether it is unconstitutional for Congress to forbid corporations and labor unions to use their treasuries to bankroll ads for and against candidates.
Those who advocate greater government control over campaign contributions say a court decision in the affirmative would revolutionize the way political campaigns are funded. Corporations and labor unions now are required to fund their political activities through money raised by their political action committees.
The death penalty case came in a challenge from Holly Wood, who killed his former girlfriend Ruby Lois Gosha with a shotgun while she was sleeping in her Troy, Ala., home in 1993.
Wood challenged his death sentence on several grounds, including the decision by his inexperienced attorney not to pursue and introduce to the jury a psychologist's report about Wood's diminished mental capacity. Such evidence could be seen as mitigating when considering whether Wood deserved death for his actions.
The Alabama Supreme Court upheld Wood's sentence, but a federal judge agreed with Wood that the lawyer's performance was incompetent. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit reversed that decision.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday said the appeals court was right. "Even if it is debatable, it is not unreasonable to conclude that . . . counsel made a strategic decision not to inquire further into the information contained in the report about Wood's mental deficiencies and not to present to the jury such information," Sotomayor wrote.
She noted that the report contained information about Wood trying to kill another ex-girlfriend in much the same manner.
She was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Stephen G. Breyer.
Justices John Paul Stevens and Anthony M. Kennedy dissented, saying the lawyer's decision was best attributed to "inattention and neglect."
Sotomayor's extensive record as a judge is scant on capital punishment. The pro-death-penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation said it was encouraged by Sotomayor's decision to uphold the appeals court ruling.
The case is Wood v. Allen.
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Keywords: habeas, federal courts, Guantanamo, civil commitment, immigration, death penalty, criminal procedure
Working Paper Series
There is much confusion now surrounding the diagnoses of Antisocial Personality Disorder and Psychopathy. Some individuals still refer to the two as the same diagnosis with different names, even though there is a consensus in the psychology field that the two are distinct disorders. Part of this confusion is likely to be the result of the overlap in the diagnostic criteria: both diagnoses are associated with a history of antisocial behavior. However, it is also very possible that this confusion in the literature is a result of consistent name and criteria changes for the “criminal personality” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. To make sense of the confusion surrounding the two different diagnoses, the evolution of Antisocial Personality Disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is examined in this paper.
Recent scientific findings about the developing teen brain have both captured public attention and begun to percolate through legal theory and practice. Indeed, many believe that developmental neuroscience contributed to the U.S. Supreme Court's elimination of the juvenile death penalty in Roper v. Simmons. Post-Roper, scholars assert that the developmentally normal attributes of the teen brain counsel differential treatment of young offenders, and advocates increasingly make such arguments before the courts. The success of any theory, though, depends in large part on implementation, and challenges that emerge through implementation illuminate problematic aspects of the theory. This Article tests the legal impact of developmental neuroscience by analyzing cases in which juvenile defendants have attempted to put it into practice. It reveals that most such efforts fail. Doctrinal factors hamstring most claims--for example, that persons with immature brains are incapable of forming the requisite mens rea for serious crimes. Limitations intrinsic to the science itself--for example, individual variation--also hinder its relevance and impact. These factors both explain why developmental neuroscience has had minimal effects on juvenile justice in the courts and illustrate why it generally should. Moreover, direct reliance on neuroscience as the metric for juvenile justice policy may jeopardize equality and autonomy interests, and brain-based arguments too frequently risk inaccuracy and overstatement. The cases also strongly suggest that neuroscience does not materially shape legal decisionmakers' beliefs and values about youthful offenders but instead will be read through the lens of those beliefs and values.
Developmental neuroscience nonetheless can play a small role in juvenile justice going forward. Legislatures and courts may regard that science as one source among many upon which to draw when basing policy choices on assumptions about juveniles as a group. To go further is unwarranted and threatens to draw attention away from critical legal and environmental factors--good schools, strong families, economic opportunities, mental health care, humane sentencing regimes, and rehabilitative services--that are both more important and subject to greater direct control.
The U.S. Supreme Court in Jurek v. Texas (1976) affirmed that capital juries are able to identify those capital offenders who will commit serious violence in the future. The capability of capital juries to accurately make these judgments as a means of deciding which capital offenders should receive the death penalty has been widely endorsed in both statute and case law, as well as embraced by jurors. A growing body of research on rates and correlates of prison violence, however, points to this confidence being misplaced. Prior investigations of the accuracy of these capital jury predictions, though limited in number, have found alarming error rates. The current study retrospectively reviewed the post-trial (M = 5.7 years) prison disciplinary misconduct of federal capital offenders (N = 72) for whom juries considered “future dangerousness” as an aggravating factor at sentencing. These jurors’ predictive performance was no better than random guesses, with high error (false positive) rates, regardless of the severity of the anticipated violence. In light of prior studies, it is concluded that juror predictions of future violence lack sufficient reliability to play a role in death penalty determinations.
Confirmation bias is the tendency to bolster a hypothesis by seeking consistent evidence while minimizing inconsistent evidence. In criminal investigations, preferring hypothesis-consistent information could undermine accuracy by leading investigators to disregard evidence that challenges their theory of a case. Two studies examine factors that influence confirmation bias in criminal investigations. In Study 1 (N = 108), participants who articulated a hypothesis early in their review of a mock police file showed bias in seeking and interpreting evidence to favor that hypothesis. In Study 2 (N = 109), participants who considered why their hypothesis might be wrong showed less bias, but those who generated additional hypotheses did not. Implications for improving accuracy of investigations and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Cultural competency is critical in criminal forensic evaluations. Cultural competency eschews reliance on stereotypes, precluding the mistake of assuming that cultural dictates apply with equal force to all who share a cultural background, thus allowing the forensic examiner to provide a comprehensive picture of the defendant to the fact-finder. While raised frequently in death penalty cases, the idea of cultural competency is equally important to the entire criminal process. To better understand the significance of this inquiry, we address how cultural sensitivity in test selection and interview techniques may enhance result validity. In a parallel fashion, ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has drawn importance to cultural competency. Although international human rights and cultural sensitivity have been considered with regard to race, gender, and religion, applications to criminal matters are still in their infancy. This article considers strategies to enhance the effectiveness of testimony and mitigation efforts
