Preschool Children's Performance on the Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test

In two situations various comparisons were performed among the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) and Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices (RCPM) scores of 11 girls and 11 boys of preschool age (Study 1) and of 11 nonproblem and 11 behavior problem preschool children (Study 2). A possible sex difference was found: girls did obtain a significant correlation between the PPVT raw (or non-age-corrected) scores and the RCPM, whereas boys did not. Age and RCPM scores were significantly correlated (Study 1), but age and PPVT IQ scores were not. Thus, it appeared that scores on a measure of the spatial ability involved in the RCPM do increase progressively with age, although they are not related to the skills measured by the PPVT. In Study 2 a trend toward higher correlations was found between the RCPM and the PPVT scores for the nonproblem as compared to the problem children.