Is one item an adequate measure of cognitive learning?

While the "leaning loss" scale is a valid means of estimating cognitive learning, the test is valid only when used as designed-with two items.

Cognitive correlates of complexity of children's drawings.

240 children (60 each at ages 4, 6, 8, and 10 years) were administered Dennis' (1987) Five Drawing Tasks and five additional developmental tasks. Three hypotheses were tested: that object recognition and working memory would be related to increasing complexity, that both would load on separate factors, and that higher-order analyses would indicate an underlying second-order spatial factor. Analysis included very strong zero-order correlations with age.

Case's developmental model and children's drawings.

109 children in four age groups were administered two memory measures designed by Case in 1985, the Beery Visual Motor Integration Test and five drawing tasks from Dennis. Scores on working memory were correlated positively with age; children's drawings corresponded to Case's four developmental substages; and a direct relationship was found between the children's drawings and their performance on the psychometric measure of visuomotor integration. These findings are interpreted as evidence that important developmental changes in children's drawing can reliably illuminate changes in intellectual development.