RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Education and Training Evaluation Commission has launched the Alif-Ya Digital Intelligence Scale, which is the first globally interactive digital intelligence scale and the first Arabic intelligence scale developed in the Kingdom.
It is designed for children aged 5-18 and involves the use of interactive computer games with immediate results displayed upon completion.
According to a report by Saudi Press Agency, the commission collaborated with the University of Houston and Yale University to develop the Alif-Ya Digital Intelligence Scale, for the Arab community in general and the Gulf and Saudi communities in particular.
Abdullah Alqataee, the CEO of the National Center for Assessment affiliated with the commission, told Arab News that the scale aims to identify gifted individuals, as well as learning, memory, attention, language, and autism spectrum disorders and provide a clinical diagnosis of neurological-psychiatric diseases.
It supports relevant entities in fulfilling their educational, counseling, and therapeutic roles. Its target audience includes students in special education and those requiring diagnosis and reports for appropriate healthcare services.
The digital scale is available in both Arabic and English languages. It is an individualized measure of general intelligence and abilities, and serves as a comprehensive intelligence quotient, or IQ, assessment.
It includes 47 sub-tests, which represent a significant 261 percent increase in sub-scale measurements compared to internationally recognized scales. Additionally, it can be applied remotely in the future without requiring extensive preparation time and effort for the assessment session.
The scale covers cognitive, neural, and psychological aspects and is designed in the form of engaging computer games that adapt to the examinee’s level. This helps alleviate anxiety among the examinees and automatically saves data to the benefit of users and to facilitate scientific research.
To ensure the highest standards in implementing the scale, over 600 examiners were trained throughout the Kingdom, and it was standardized on a representative sample from all regions.
It was applied individually to more than 22,000 students. A platform for the scale was launched, and examiner and application usage guides were prepared.
The scale is a new addition to the Kingdom’s resources to care for its people and the Arab community, aligning with its ambitious vision to serve humanity.
The commission has established an online platform to receive requests from supervisors, psychologists, and social specialists interested in utilizing the scale to apply for specialization certification. Additionally, students and their parents can also benefit from it, easily and comprehensively understanding their intelligence levels.
Intelligence scales first emerged in France and later in the US, with notable examples being the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale in 1916 and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale in 1945, both of which were paper-based.
