Cognitive Evaluation of Non-Verbal Intelligence among  Adolescents in the Middle Atlas of Morocco

Authors

Mounir Bouzaboul1 , Abdeslam Amri1 , Zakaria Abidli2 , Hassan Saidi2 , Nourredin Faiz1 , Rabea Ziri1 , Ahmed Omar Touhami Ahami 1

Cognitive assessment, non-verbal intelligence, Raven’s Standard Progressive, Matrices, adolescents, Morocco.

Bacground and purpose : Non-verbal intelligence is one of the cognitive skills that plays a key role

in academic performance in children and adolescents. Hence, this study intends to evaluate non-verbal

intelligence in a sample of Moroccan adolescents to situate them in relation to their counterparts in other

countries.

Materials and Method : To assess non verbal intelligence, we used Raven’s Progressive Matrix Test, which

consists of 60 items, categorized into five series of 12 items.

Results : There were 286 adolescents, 46.8 % of whom were women, with an average age of 15.2±1.7 years.

Cronbach’s alpha value is 0.94, the correlations between the different series of the test are highly significant,

reflecting the high internal reliability of the test. The scores of the adolescents are low compared to the

international standard and more than 4% of the participants are in an intellectually impaired state.

Conclusion : We consider it important to have a national standardization of the test and to establish a precise

diagnosis in order to identify adolescents with an intellectual disability.