Columbia Mental Maturity Scale (CMMS)*

Columbia Mental Maturity Scale (CMMS) Bessie Burgemeister, Lucille H. Blum, and Irving Lorge

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  Purpose: Designed to assess the reasoning ability of children


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  Age range: 3 to 9 years


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  Time: (15-20) minutes

The Columbia Mental Maturity Scale (CMMS) is an individually administered instrument designed to assess the general reasoning ability of children between the ages of 3 years, 6 months to 9 years, 11 months. The CMMS consists of 92 pictorial and figural, classification items arranged in a series of eight overlapping levels. Each of the eight levels contains between 51 and 65 items that are appropriate for a specific chronological age.

Scoring: Administration of the CMMS takes approximately 15 to 20 minutes and yields several scores: raw score, Age Deviation Score, percentile rank, stanine, and Maturity Index. The Age Deviation Score is a standard score with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 16. The maturity indexes are comparable to mental ages, although they are more global, employing the use of ranges of age rather than specific mental ages.

Reliability: The CMMS manual reports both split-half and test retest reliabilities. The split-half reliabilities are reported for each of the 13 age levels, with the items for each age level divided in half forming two half-tests for each age level. The manual reports internal consistency coefficients ranging from a low of .85 to a high of .91 with a median split-half coefficient of .90 for the standardization group, indicating excellent internal consistency. Test-retest reliability coefficients for three different age groups are reported for an interval of 7-10 days. A median test-retest reliability of .85 was obtained.

Validity: The CMMS manual reports correlational data between the CMMS and the subtests of the SAT. These data indicate that the interlevel standard scores of the CMMS correlate substantially with the various subtest scores of the SAT with a median value of .57 (.31 to .61) for all Primary I Battery subtests and a median value of .47 (.43 to .61) for all Primary II Battery subtests. The correlation of CMMS scores and two measures of intellectual ability, the Otis-Lennon Mental Ability Test (OL) and the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (SB), are reported as concurrent validity. The ADS of the CMMS and the Deviation IQ of the Otis-Lennon correlated from .62 to .69. The Deviation IQ score of the SB and the ADS of the CMMS correlated .67 for 52 preschool and first-grade children from a large southern city.

Norms: The CMMS was standardized on 2,600 children stratified on the basis of parental occupation, race, geographic location, and size of residence community. A sample of 200 children were selected for each age level closely reflecting the population indicated by the 1960 U.S.

Suggested Uses: The CMMS is recommended as an instrument for screening the general reasoning ability in young children.