CROSS-CULTURAL COGNITION - DEVELOPING TESTS FOR DEVELOPING-COUNTRIES

The problems of adapting measures of cognitive performance to Third Wo rld conditions are described, and three novel adaptations are proposed , one based on speed of sentence comprehension, one on vocabulary acqu isition, and a third on speed of visual search using pictorial materia l. These and other existing tests are applied to studying the cognitiv e performance of Jamaican children as part of an investigation into th e effects on cognition of infection by the parasitic worm Trichuris tr ichiura. We demonstrate that the tests are usable under Third World fi eld conditions, and give reliable results. The validity of our propose d tests is indicated by their capacity to predict scholastic performan ce. Despite their brevity and avoidance of any demand on literacy, the y yielded substantial correlations with the reading, spelling and arit hmetic scales of the Wide Range Achievement Test.