DATA SHEET

1. NAME : Mc Carthy Scales of Aptitudes and Psychomotor Skills for Children.

2. AUTHOR : Dorothea Mc Carthy.

3. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS:
 The MSCA is applicable to children between the ages of 2 ½ and 8 ½ years.
 Designed for both sexes, different regional, socioeconomic and racial groups.
 The test material and questions are playful in nature.
 Description of the 6 scales:
It evaluates 6 scales: Verbal (V), Perceptual-manipulative (PM), Numerical (N), General Cognitive or
General Intellectual Index (GCI), Memory (Mem) and Motor Skills (Mot).

4. The MSCA contains 18 independent tests, which have been grouped into 6 scales.
1.-Verbal Scale (V)
Evaluates the child's ability to express himself verbally, maturity of his verbal concepts. This scale
requires mental processes such as memory of small or broad content, divergent thinking and
deductive reasoning. It is made up of the following tests:
3.- Pictorial memory
4.- Vocabulary
5.- Verbal memory
15.- Verbal fluency
17.- Opposites

2.-Perceptual-manipulative scale (PM)

It evaluates their reasoning ability through the manipulation of materials, imitation, logical
classification and visual organicity in different spatial, perceptual-visual and conceptual tasks. It is
made up of the following tests:
1.- Construction of cubes
2.- Puzzles
6.- Hitting sequence
8.- Right-left orientation
12.- Copy of drawings
13.- Drawing of a child
18.- Formation of concepts.

3.-Numeric Scale (N)

It assesses your facility with numbers and your understanding of quantitative terms. It is made up of
the following tests:

5.- Calculation
14.- Numerical memory
16.- Counting and distribution

4.-General Cognitive Scale (GCI)

It is made up of all the tests that make up the V, PM and N scales. All of these tasks are cognitive in
nature.
 5.-Memory Scale (Mem)
Pictorial memory and hitting sequence simultaneously present visual and auditory stimuli. It is made
up of the following tests:
3.-Pictorial memory
6.-Hitting sequence
7.-Verbal memory, part I and part II, included in V and GC.
14.-Numerical memory, part I and II, included in N and GC.

6.-Motor Scale (Mot)

It evaluates the child's coordination in the execution of different fine and non-fine motor tasks,
coordination of legs, arms and imitative action, allowing the evaluation of non-fine motor aptitude, in
copies of drawings that have a lot of cognitive content and therefore are also included in The PM and
GC scales measure fine motor coordination that is evident through manual coordination and digital
dexterity. It is made up of the following tests:
9.- Leg coordination
10.- Arm coordination
11.- Imitative action
12.- Copy of drawings (included in PM and GC)
13.-Drawing of a child (included in PM and GC)

5. DESCRIPTION OF THE TESTS THAT MAKE UP THE SCALES

1.- CONSTRUCTION WITH CUBES (PM, GC) is a NON-verbal test, the first element is that the child can
make a tower equal to the examiner, he/she does not have limited time, and can obtain points for
partial constructions, and the manipulative skills are observed of the child and his perception of
spatial relationships.
2.- PUZZLE ; (PM, GC) at the beginning they are told the figure they have to compose, if the child
does not do it within the time the examiner completes it so that the child sees that it is possible and
moves on to the second element, if they settle for incorrect results , this execution reveals a lack of
precision, due to poor perception, poor coordination or low motivation.
3.- Pictorial memory ; (V, GC, MEM) sheet contains 6 familiar objects, the examiner reads it for 10
seconds. , removes the sheet from the child's sight and asks him to remember, it is an easy test of
immediate memory
4.- VOCABULARY (V, GC) part I pictorial vocabulary (for younger ages) requires the child to
demonstrate their understanding of the spoken language of others, part II oral vocabulary
5.- CALCULATION.- (N, GC) the child answers a series of twelve questions of increasing difficulty
about numerical information. When they perform this TEST well, they do not need to perform 16 or
vice versa in the score.
6.- HITTING SEQUENCE; PM, GC, MEM) the child has to imitate 8 sequences of notes, it allows
simultaneously auditory and visual stimuli in addition to evaluating immediate memory, for non-
verbal material the test allows observing the child's attention and perceptual-motor coordination
7.- VERBAL MEMORY; (V, GC, MEM.) In part I, words and phrases that the child must repeat, in part
II, a story.
 8.- RIGHT LEFT ORIENTATION; (PM, GC) THE FIRST 5 elements measure your intellectual knowledge,
right left of your own body the next 4, pictorial representation of a child and if you have mastery in
the concepts and then reverse it, this test is For children from 5 to 8 and a half years old.
9.- LEG COORDINATION (MOT.) The 6 elements explore the maturity of motor coordination in the
lower extremities. The postural tone and balance of the 2 and a half year old child and the agile 7
year old child are observed.
10: COORDINATION OF ARMS; (MOT.): this test is used as an intermediate and evaluates the
development of the upper extremities with three recreational activities, bouncing the ball, catching
the ball and shooting at a target. The examiner must accurately record the execution carried out.
11.- IMITATIVE ACTION (MOT.) four motor tasks, on the development of motor skills, examining the
preferential use of one of the eyes when looking through a tube.
12.-copy of drawings (PM, GC, MOT. ) In the child's analysis of the drawing and his ability to treat it
as a total configuration, his perception of the real world is reflected.
13.- DRAWING OF A CHILD.- (PM, GC, MOT.) The boy will draw a boy and the girl a girl to evaluate
children from 2 and a half years old to 8 and a half years old.
14.- NUMERICAL MEMORY; (N, GC, MEM. ) part I MUST REPEAT SIX SERIES IN THE SAME ORDER
PRESENTED, immediate memory is evaluated in part II will repeat in reverse both tasks require
numerical aptitude, concentrated attention and the ability to reproduce material received auditorily.
15.- VERBAL FLUENCE (V, GC) measures the child's ability to classify and think according to certain
categories. Fluency aspects of divergent or creative thinking.
16.- COUNT AND DISTRIBUTION: (N, GC)
They evaluate the child's ability to count and understand simple quantitative terms, it is advisable to
give them to all children.
17.- OPPOSITES (V, GC) must say the position of the key word, with this test the child demonstrates
his ability to relate.
18. - CONCEPT FORMATION.- (PM, GC) A set of 12 pieces (2 shapes, 2 sizes and 3 colors) is used in
order to evaluate, capacity, classifications and develop generalizations.

6. APPLICATION OF THE MSCA TO SPECIAL CHILDREN

The MCCARTHY scales can be useful for evaluating children with MR, since some easy tasks have
been included in the battery.

7. GENERAL APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS

 Battery application order
The tests should be applied according to the order indicated by the number each of them has.
 APPLICATION TIME
Estimated time for application is approximately 45 to 50 minutes with young children (under 5 years
old and around) and about 1 hour with older children. Duration can reach up to 75 minutes or more

8. MATERIAL NECESSARY FOR THE TEST

 Manual.
 Answers paper.
 Sheet booklet.
  12 green cubes of 2.5 cm. Edge
 Box with 6 puzzles
 Xylophone and hammer
 Tape (length 2.75 ms, with a mark at 1.80 meters)
 rubber ball
 seed bag
 Drilled screen for the target
 Tube
 Two paste-size cards
 Set of twelve pieces (six square and six circular; each group has pieces of three colors: red, yellow
and blue and two sizes).

9. USING THE APPLICATION SHEET

 It is used to record the score with a “Hit-Miss” indication or with the child's literal response to each
element applied.
 When recording responses, the examiner may find it useful to use abbreviations such as the
following:

P: indicates that the examiner had to ask a question to classify an answer.

Ns: indicates that the child has answered “I don't know” or has shaken his head negatively.
Inc: Alludes to the fact that the child has not completed the element within the conceived time.
NR: Indicates that the child has not given any verbal or mime response to an element.

 In tests 10, 12 and 13, the examiner observes the child's preference for one hand over the other
when giving their answers and collects this information.

10. RULES OF INTERPRETATION

 To obtain the indices of the six scales, the following must be taken into account:
 Check that the corresponding score has been awarded and noted for the very easy elements that
there was no need to apply.
 Obtain the direct score for each test and record it in the corresponding total box.
 Preparation of the profile found on the cover of the answer sheet and preparing the corresponding
graph.
 To interpret the profile, the examiner must adhere to the section “description of the six scales”,
reliability, significant differences between the indices and the interpretation of the GCI.
 Evaluation of laterality according to the tests applied and recording the “dominant hand” and
“dominant eye” on the answer sheet.
 The summary of scores is found in table 16 of the conversion of the direct scores of each of the
MSCA scales into index scores.