Unique designs, errors and strategies in the Five-Point Test: The contribution of age, phonemic fluency and visuospatial abilities in Italian children aged 6–11 years

Abstract

Performances on the Five-Point Test of 161 Italian children aged 6 to 11 years were investigated, along with phonemic fluency, visual-motor integration, visual perception, motor coordination, visuospatial memory, and fluid intelligence. Five-Point Test accuracy was significantly related to phonemic fluency and visual-motor integration, while phonemic fluency was linked to motor coordination. The two fluency measures increased linearly with age, but the developmental progression of Five-Point Test accuracy was less influenced by age. Different age effects were also found on the relationship between fluid intelligence and the two fluency measures. The inspection of qualitative aspects of Five-Point Test performance (errors and strategies) suggested that strategy usage enhanced both productivity and accuracy in children; age-related changes were observed in the relationship between the number of errors and the total number of designs produced.

Keywords:

• Five-point test
• Phonemic fluency
• Visuospatial abilities
• Development
• Strategies

We gratefully acknowledge the psychology graduates who helped us collecting the data, the children of the school “Istituto Comprensivo Massarosa1” — Massarosa (LU) Italy — who participated in this study, and their teachers and parents for their cooperation. We would like to offer special thanks also to Elina Sinivaara for her proofreading on an earlier version of the draft and to two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that have helped us improve the article.