RELIABILITY OF PERFORMANCE ON THE TEST OF MEMORY AND LEARNING (TOMAL)BY AN ADOLESCENT LEARNING-DISABILITY SAMPLE

The Test of Memory and Learning (TOMAL) is a recent comprehensive memo ry battery offered to neuropsychologists and standardized on a nationa l sample of children ages 5 years through 19 years. The TOMAL Manual r eports very high coefficient alpha internal consistency reliability co efficients for the standardization sample of ''normal'' children. In t he current study, 99 adolescents (ages 12 to is years) diagnosed with various learning disabilities in the public schools were administered the TOMAL, and Cronbach's alpha was calculated based on the responses of these 99 adolescents. A matched sample was drawn from the standardi zation sample and alpha computed for this group. Alpha values in the t wo groups were highly similar across all 14 subtests. Although adolesc ents with learning disabilities often have memory deficits, their perf ormance on the TOMAL tends to be as reliable as that of adolescents wi thout learning disabilities.