CD-ROM LETS PARENTS TEST CHILDREN'S IQ : SOME FEAR EXAM COULD DO HARM.

Byline: Erin St. John Kelly The New York Times

For a generation that grew up with home pregnancy tests, compatibility quizzes and do-it-yourself SAT preparation kits, the latest home test may seem inevitable: an IQ test for the children.

With The Children's IQ and Achievement Test, a small Massachusetts software company says it has created the first CD-ROM test designed to let any parent measure a child's aptitude and achievement right at home.

In a time of parental anxiety about whether schools can properly identify children's needs and talents, the company feels there is a ripe market for such a test, though education experts and psychologists question whether home testing will do more harm than good.

Prudence Eiland of Hanford, Calif., bought a test as a Christmas gift for her 5- and 9-year-old boys. Both of them took the test enthusiastically. And their scores, Eiland said, were pretty much what she expected: high.

``I believe my children are extremely bright in interesting ways,'' said Eiland, who runs a financial consulting business with her husband. ``But it's nice to know as a parent that what you believe emotionally can be quantified.''

Since last fall, the company, based in Needham, Mass., has shipped 20,000 units of the test: 10,000 that were designed for children in kindergarten through third grade and 10,000 for children in fourth through sixth grade. Next month, it will begin shipping a version for children in grades seven through nine.

``We always hear that when parents are involved, kids do better,'' said David Blohm, president of Virtual Entertainment, the test's creator. ``This enables parents to get involved in an informed way and on a more regular basis.''

The test was created, Blohm said, after some of the 26,000 buyers of a 1994 IQ test on CD-ROM for adults kept asking where they could find the children's version. The test was written by Pro-Ed, a company in Austin, Texas, that publishes educational products for psychologists, speech pathologists and teachers.

IQ tests have long been the targets of heated debate, with opponents arguing that the tests are culturally biased and therefore unreliable. Pro-Ed said it gave sample CD-ROM tests to children who represented a cross-section of socioeconomic groups to come up with its average score. The test does not score above 130 or below 70, and the average score is 90 to 110.

For $39.95, parents get the CD-ROM and an 80-page manual that tells them some of the theories about testing (there are many ways to look at a child), how to deal with the results (do not consider them definitive and use them constructively) and how to administer it (the IQ portion only once a year, the achievement test once every six months).

Despite the cautions offered in the CD-ROM manual, some educators and psychologists (none of whom had seen the CD-ROM version of the test) expressed concern that any IQ test administered and interpreted at home by parents might do a child more harm than good.

``Tests are just tools not good or bad in and of themselves, but they can have bad effects,'' said David Elkind, a professor of child development at Tufts University in Medford, Mass. ``Children can be mislabeled early and bear that label for the rest of their academic career.''

Barbara Kiefer, associate professor of reading and children's literature at Columbia University's Teacher's College, said: ``We already over-rely on test scores as a measure of progress. This kind of increases the test-taking frenzy. Instead, we need to expand the way we look at kids.''

Dianne Brown, director of testing and assessment at the American Psychological Association, a trade association for psychologists, said: ``I don't like this notion of take this home and put a label on your child. These tests are criticized horribly even when being used appropriately in the school system.''

But Bryan Bryant, president of Pro-Ed, which wrote the test, argued: ``Nobody knows more about a child than the parent does. And yet so often at school, the parent is a recipient rather than a contributor of information about their child. This can provide another perspective.''

The CD-ROM tests contain lots of sound effects and animation, intended to make them fun. In the version for the youngest grade levels, a character called Mr. Stripes the Skunk cheerfully welcomes test-takers to ``Brainville.''

All three age levels get three test sections: an aptitude test that can include listening comprehension, symbolic reasoning and analogies, which produces the IQ score; an achievement section of mathematics, vocabulary, reading comprehension, spelling and usage, and a games section to sharpen skills.

In the listening comprehension section for kindergartners, the child is asked if a puppy is a dog. The child clicks on ``yes'' or ``no'' necklaces on a pig and a duck.

Can such repeated IQ testing at home help put a child on the right track to a stellar college?

Harvard University's admissions director Marlyn McGrath Lewis, is doubtful. ``Like so many of these things, it is a mixed blessing,'' McGrath Lewis said. ``It creates and capitalizes on anxieties in families.'' But she added, ``It is so hard to fault a parent for trying to encourage their child's early education.''

How to get smarter and improve test scores? McGrath Lewis said: ``If you could do any one thing? Read more. Read anything. Even comic books.''

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Photo

Photo: Henry Eiland, 5, left, works on The Children's IQ and Achievement Test at home with his brother Will, 9, and mother, Prudence.

The New York Times