Developmental Test of Visual Perception, 2nd Edition

(DTVP-2)

Publisher/Date:
• PRO-ED, Inc., 8700 Shoal Creek Blvd., Austin, TX 78758-6897. Published,
1993.

Purpose:
• Individually-administered, norm-referenced test of visual-perceptual and
visual-motor abilities for children ages 4-00 through 10-11 years.

Provides:
• Performance on eight individual subtests (Eye-Hand Coordination,
Position in Space, Copying, Figure Ground, Spatial Relations, Visual
Closure, Visual Motor Speed, and Form Constancy) combine to yield an
overall score (General Visual Perception), as well as two combined
scores: “Motor-Reduced” Visual Perception, and Visual-Motor Integration
(or “Motor Enhanced” Visual Perception)

Standardization Issues:
• Norms were based on 1,972 children from 12 states and stratified by
geographic region, gender, race, ethnicity, and hand-dominance to reflect
1990 US school-age Census data. Individual cell-sizes for each age-group
ranged from 100 to 467 children.

Reliability and Validity Issues:

• Reliability estimates presented in the manual have been substantially-
improved from those of the original DTVP. Internal-consistency estimates
for all subtests at all ages exceed .80, and composite scores were .93+
Test-retest estimates (based on 88 students from one test site, with a 2-
week interval) ranged from .71-.86 for subtests and .89-.93 for the three
composite scores. This same sampling was used to determine inter-rater
reliability, which yielded acceptable estimates of .87-.94 for subtests
and .95-.97 for the composites. Content-, criterion-, and construct-validity
evidence is described in the manual. Factor-analysis supported the
“perception” and “motor-integration” scores. Expected changes in
performance related to age and by the clinical groups selected were seen.
The test correlated highly with WISC-R Performance scores but (not
surprisingly) not with Verbal scores. As addressed below, serious
concerns exist regarding the test’s criterion validity (little relation seen with
actual school skills).
Additional Points:
• Instructions for each task are purposely simplified and able to be
explained via gestures, for administration to non-English speaking
individuals or those with hearing-impairments. However, separate norms
are not provided for these groups.
• Studies of performance by gender, race, and hand-dominance suggested
an absence of any appreciable bias between groups.
• It should be noted that the norms that the test is based on are 20-years
old.
• The manual describes procedures for prorating scores to calculate
composites when individual subtests may not have been given, though
this procedure should be avoided.
• A serious criticism of the test seems to be that—other than being shown to
correlate with other tests—the DTVP-2 may not provide strong evidence of
predictive school performance, intervention-design usefulness, or subtest
profile analysis (the latter-two apparently recognized by the authors). The
test provides reliable assessment of visual-perception, however the
diagnosis and focused treatment of visual-perceptual deficits have not
shown convincing relation to the treatment of educational difficulties. The
manual itself references that “performance on the DTVP-2 subtests has
little to do with school skills as seen by their teachers” (p. 42). In addition,
analysis of 44 correlational-coefficients between the DTVP-2 and the
CTBS (Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills) found 41 of them to be not-
significant, and the remaining 3 were low.