The following description of the DAS subtests includes qualitative characteristics for g loadings, reliability, and specificity. The following definitions and criteria were used in assessing each subtest. When describing the norms for each subtest, the terms usual and extended means that the subtest is appropriate for the full range of ability at that age. The term Out of level denotes ages at which the subtest is appropriate for most, but not all children. The g Loading refers to the subtest s loading on the first unrotated factor or component in principle factor analysis.
Reliability refers to the degree to which a test score is free from errors of measurement.
A subtest s reliability was considered High if it was greater than or equal to .90, Medium if it was greater than .79 but less than .90, and Low if it was below .80. We computed the specificity for each subtest at each age by the following procedure. The shared or common variance was first estimated by the squared multiple correlation between the specified subtest and all other subtests in the battery. Subtracting the reliability coefficient from the common or shared variance provided the estimate of specific variance for each subtest.