The TONI-3, a major revision of the popular and well-built Test of Nonverbal Intelligence, is a norm-referenced measure of intelligence, aptitude, abstract reasoning, and problem solving that is completely free of the use of language. The test requires no reading, writing, speaking, or listening on the part of the test subject. It is completely nonverbal and largely motor-free, requiring only a point, nod, or symbolic gesture to indicate response choices.

This unique language-free format makes the TONI-3 ideal for evaluating subjects who have previously been difficult to test with any degree of confidence or precision. It is particularly well suited for individuals who are known or believed to have disorders of communication or thinking such as aphasia, dyslexia, language disabilities, learning disabilities, speech problems, specific academic deficits, and similar conditions that may be the result of mental retardation, deafness, developmental disabilities, autism, cerebral palsy, stroke, disease, head injury, or other neurological impairment. The format also accommodates the needs of subjects who do not read or write English well, due to disability or lack of exposure to the English language and U.S. culture.

The abstract/figural content of the test items ensures that each item presents a novel problem. There are no words, numbers, or familiar pictures or symbols in the TONI-3 items. This feature, in combination with the elimination of language, reduces the cultural loading of the test due to instruction, training, or prior information or exposure. The drawings in the TONI­3 Picture Book have been improved substantially in this revision. They were reproduced through the most current computer-assisted design technology.

Because the TONI-3 has two equivalent forms, it fills a niche in situations that depend upon pre-and posttesting. Reevaluations in school programs usually have this requirement, as do evaluations of program effectiveness, pupil or patient progress, treatment efficacy, and some types of controlled research.

Not only is the TONI-3 a versatile instrument by virtue of its language-free, motor-reduced, and culture-reduced format; its novel abstract-figural content; its wide age range, and its equivalent forms, it is also a psychometrically superior test. The manual details research conducted by the authors and by independent researchers over almost 20 years that document the technical quality of the test’s and its predececcors’ norms, reliability, and validity.

Each form of the TONI-3 contains 50 items arranged in easy to difficult order. Raw scores are converted to percentile ranks and to deviation quotients with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15 points. To maintain the language-free format, instructions are pantomimed and responses are conveyed by pointing or making some other meaningful gesture.

The TONI-3 was normed on a large sample of over 3,000 subjects tested in 1995 and 1996 whose demographic characteristics match those of the United States according to the 1990 census. The normative group was stratified on the basis of age, gender, race, ethnic group membership, geographic location and community size, principal language spoken in the home, and socioeconomic status as indicated by educational attainment and family income.

The potential bias on the basis of these variables was studied and found to be insignificant. Not only was bias studied at the test level, individual item bias was examined by comparing item difficulty across subgroups based on these demographic variables and by determining item curve characteristics, which are considered to be one of the most direct and sensitive methods for detecting biased items.

TONI-3 users have the benefit of almost 20 years of research establishing the test’s reliability and validity. Extensive research is reported in the manual, including the authors’ own research and all published research conducted by independent investigators since the test was first published in 1980. The body of reliability research that is reported analyzes the TONI-3’s content reliability and its reliability over time.

Exhaustive validity data are reported as well, documenting the test’s relationship to other measures of intelligence, its relationship to measures of achievement and personality, its efficiency in discriminating groups appropriately, its factor structure, and other important estimates of test validity for samples of children, adolescents, and adults.The TONI-3’s reliability and validity were studied with subjects believed to be intellectually normal and also with samples of individuals who present a variety of cognitive, linguistic, and sensory exceptionalities, including those who are intellectually gifted or challenged; individuals residing both in the United States and in foreign countries who do not speak English or who have limited English proficiency; and those with diagnosed disabilities and medical conditions including deafness, specific learning disabilities, aphasia, dyslexia, closed head injury, Alzheimer’s disease and specific memory disorders, stroke, and anoxia following myocardial infarct. 

• It meets the highest psychometric standards for norms, reliability, and validity.
• It is language free, requiring no reading, writing, or listening.
• It is culturally reduced, utilizing novel abstract/figural content.
• It is motor reduced, with only a meaningful gesture required in response.
• It is quick to score, requiring less than 15 minutes to administer and score.
• It is appropriate for use with children, adolescents, and older adults ages 6 through 89 years.
• It has two equivalent forms suitable for test­retest and pre- and posttesting situations.
• The plates in the Picture Book are clear and distinct and the Picture Book itself is durable and easy to manipulate.
• The test manual provides detailed directions for administering, scoring, and interpreting the test.
• A 20-year body of reliability and validity research is cited and summarized in the test manual.