Sex differences on verbal and non-verbal abilities among primary school children in Malta

Abstract

Sex differences on verbal abilities assessed with tests of reading, verbal comprehension, spelling and foreign language ability, and of non-verbal abilityassessed with Coloured Progressive Matrices were examined in a longitudinal study on a sample of 136 children between the time they were 5 years old to the time they were 9 years old in Malta. Girls obtained significantly higher means on the verbal abilities, and a non-significantly higher mean on the Coloured Progressive Matrices (d=.15). The results are generally consistent with studies in the United States and Britain.