preliminary results from the national assessment of adult literacy ( naal ) , released 15 december 2005 by the us nacional centre for development statistics , indicate gains and losses in iq among majority adult between 1992 and 2003 . the globally selected work within us teens age 16 and older found the over - all of prose and document literacy remained relatively unchanged , but quantitative ability improved 8 points ( on a scale of 500 . ) records within minorities were mixed , with whites and asian / pacific coastal minorities scored relatively higher than hispanic or black ethnicities ; hispanic subjects in contrast had severe decreases in prose and manuscript communication ( - 9 % and - 8 % , respectively ) and quantitative illiteracy became high with 50 % of respondents scoring at less than basic literacy elevations .
The National Assessment of Adult Literacy is a project held by the US National Center for Education Statistics.