(PHAI) Prueba de Habilidades Academicas Iniciales

The PHAI (a translation and adaptation of the YCAT, Young Children's Achievement Test) represents a major improvement in the early identification of Spanish speaking children at risk for school failure. It yields an overall Early Achievement standard score, and individual subtest standard scores for General Information, Reading, Writing, Mathematics, and Spoken Language. The PHAI was designed with both the child and the examiner in mind. The individual subtests for General Information, Reading, Writing, Mathematics and Spoken Language can be given independent of each other, leading to flexible testing sessions. Standard scores (with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15), percentiles, and age equivalents are provided for both the subtests and the composite.

The PHAI was normed on 650 children representing 10 states (Jalisco, Queretaro, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Baja California Sur, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Sonora, Veracruz, and Yucatan) representing the 5 major geographic regions of Mexico. The information is clearly representative of the Mexican population as reported in the 2000 XII Censo General de Poblacion y Vivenda by the Insituto Nacional de Estadistica, Geografia e Informática (INEGI). Reliability was standardized using the coefficient alpha, test-retest, and interscorer procedures.  Evidence of the validity of YCAT test scores is proved for content-description validity, criterion-prediction validity, and construct-identification validity.

Finally, the PHAI items were examined to ensure that little or no bias relative to gender, disability, race, socioeconomic level, or ethnic group existed. Differential item functioning techniques were used to examine items for potential bias.The PHAI Manual sold in the United States is printed in English except for item instructions and the appendices used for scoring.