What is the TOPS-3? The Test of Problem Solving explained

The TOPS-3 is the Test of Problem Solving, Third Edition: Elementary, an individually administered test of language-based reasoning for children aged 6 years 0 months through 12 years 11 months. The current edition is the TOPS-3E: NU, a "normative update" (the same test re-standardized on a fresh sample) published by PRO-ED in 2018 and written by Linda Bowers, Rosemary Huisingh, and Carolyn LoGiudice. It is given one-on-one, usually by a speech-language pathologist, and takes about 35 minutes. The TOPS-3 is not an IQ test. According to PRO-ED, it assesses "a school-age child's ability to integrate semantic and linguistic knowledge with reasoning ability by way of picture stimuli and verbal responses," which makes it a measure of how well a child can use language to think, rather than a measure of general intelligence. In an evaluation it works as a companion to an IQ test: the IQ battery estimates overall cognitive ability, while the TOPS-3 focuses on the verbal reasoning a child needs to explain why something happened, what will happen next, and how a problem could be fixed. This article covers what the test measures, its six tasks, how it is scored, and how it relates to intelligence testing.

The publisher describes the TOPS-3E: NU as a test that "focuses on students' linguistic ability to think and reason." In its framing, language competence is the verbal indicator of how a child's language skills affect the ability to think, reason, problem solve, infer, classify, associate, predict, determine causes, sequence, and understand directions. The questions cover clarifying, analyzing, generating solutions, evaluating, and "affective thinking," which means reasoning about how people feel in a situation.

PRO-ED draws a clear line between this test and nonverbal ability measures. In the publisher's words, "while other tests may assess students' thinking skills by tapping mathematical, spatial, or nonverbal potential," the TOPS-3E: NU measures the discrete skills that form the foundation of language-based thinking. A child who cannot put a thought into words will struggle on this test even if the underlying idea is sound, and that is by design.

The publisher also states what the test is not. PRO-ED says the TOPS-3E: NU "is not primarily a test of pragmatic or social language skills." For questions about conversational use of language, an examiner would turn to a dedicated instrument such as the TOPL-2, and PRO-ED recommends using the TOPS-3E: NU as one part of a battery when pragmatic competence is the question.

The test has kept the same structure since LinguiSystems published the original third edition in 2005. That manual lists six tasks, and the Texas Education Agency's summary of the 2018 normative update lists the same six subtests.

• Making Inferences: the child explains something the picture implies rather than shows. On the adolescent version the authors describe the same task as giving "a logical explanation about a situation, combining what he knows or can see with previous experience/background information."

• Sequencing: the child works out and explains the logical order of events in an everyday situation.

• Negative Questions: the child explains why something would not happen or why an action would be a poor choice.

• Problem Solving: the child identifies a problem in the scene and proposes a workable solution.

• Predicting: the child says what is likely to happen next and why.

• Determining Causes: the child explains what led to the situation shown.

All six tasks use the same materials. The examiner shows pictures from the Picture Book, asks questions, and records the child's spoken answers in the Examiner Record Booklet, where each response is judged against the manual's scoring standards. Because every item depends on an oral explanation, the test taps expressive language and reasoning at the same time, which is a limitation for anyone hoping to isolate one from the other.

The TOPS-3E: NU yields one composite. According to PRO-ED, the old Total Score was renamed the Problem Solving Index and is reported as a "standard score" with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, the same metric most IQ tests use. The record booklet also converts the raw score to a percentile rank and an age equivalent.

• A stratified norm sample: PRO-ED reports that the normative sample was stratified by age relative to region, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic factors, matched to the school-age population figures in the 2016 ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the United States.

• Item screening for bias: every item was evaluated with conventional item analysis and with "differential item analysis," a statistical check for items that behave differently across demographic groups, to remove potentially biased items. The index was also examined for floor and ceiling effects.

• Reliability: the publisher reports an average "coefficient alpha" (a measure of how consistently the items hang together) of .82 for the Problem Solving Index. That is respectable for a composite built from open-ended verbal responses, though lower than the .90-plus values typical of full-scale IQ scores.

• Diagnostic accuracy: PRO-ED reports that a Problem Solving Index cutoff of 90 produced a sensitivity of .75, a specificity of .85, and an area under the curve of .74 for distinguishing students who receive special education services from those who do not. A cutoff of 92 gave a sensitivity of .69, a specificity of .89, and an area under the curve of .73 for distinguishing students with a language impairment.

• Validity evidence: the publisher reports correlations with two subtests of the Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test-Group Abilities Test, .73 with Analogic Reasoning and .89 with Quantitative, and notes that the comparison test was still in development at the time.

Those accuracy figures deserve a sober reading. An area under the curve in the low .70s means the test separates groups moderately well: enough to contribute to a decision, and nowhere near enough to make one alone. Any decision about a language disorder or special education eligibility belongs to a qualified clinician or school team weighing several sources of evidence.

The TOPS-3E: NU is individually administered and, per PRO-ED, takes 35 minutes. The complete kit contains an Examiner's Manual, a Picture Book, and 25 Examiner Record Booklets. PRO-ED lists the test at qualification "Level B," which under its published policy means a master's degree in psychology, education, or a closely related field with formal assessment training, or certification by a professional body such as the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, or a license in a healthcare or allied healthcare field. In practice the test is given by speech-language pathologists, educational diagnosticians, special educators, and school psychologists. Western Psychological Services, which also distributes the test, applies its own stricter "Level C" requirement.

The original 2005 edition remains in circulation: PRO-ED still sells the old TOPS-3: E test forms, and reports written before 2018 may cite the LinguiSystems norms. A parent reading an evaluation should check which edition was used, because scores from the two norm sets are not interchangeable.

An IQ test estimates general cognitive ability from a broad set of tasks. A comprehensive battery such as the WISC samples verbal comprehension, visual-spatial reasoning, fluid reasoning, working memory, and processing speed, then combines them into a full-scale score. The TOPS-3 samples one strand of that picture, reasoning with and through language, and reports a single index. The Problem Solving Index uses the same 100-and-15 scale as an IQ score, but it is a narrower construct and should never be read as an IQ.

The overlap with verbal reasoning is real, and the publisher's reported correlations with nonverbal reasoning subtests show that the TOPS-3 shares variance with general ability. Mainstream psychometrics would expect exactly that: nearly every cognitive test correlates with the general factor of intelligence, and a test that asks children to infer, predict, and explain causes is a reasoning test whatever its label.

That entanglement is also why interpretation takes care. A meta-analysis by Erica Gallinat and Tammie Spaulding in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research pooled 138 samples from 131 studies and found that children with specific language impairment scored, on average, 0.69 standard deviations below typically developing age-matched peers on nonverbal cognitive tests. A low TOPS-3 score by itself cannot say whether the child's difficulty lies in language, in reasoning, or in both, which is why an evaluator pairs it with an IQ measure and with classroom observation.

For older students, PRO-ED publishes the companion TOPS 2-Adolescent, covering ages 12 years 0 months through 17 years 11 months in about 40 minutes. Published in 2007 and, according to the publisher, based on the critical-thinking research of Richard Paul, it uses 18 written passages instead of pictures, organized into five subtests: Making Inferences, Determining Solutions, Problem Solving, Interpreting Perspectives, and Transferring Insights. PRO-ED notes that revised normative tables are available on request, a sign that the 2007 norms are aging and that no 2018-style update has yet been released for the adolescent test.

Both tests share the same honest limitations. Each produces a single composite built from open-ended spoken answers, so scoring depends on the examiner's judgment against the manual's standards. Each is a snapshot of one day, with the measurement error that implies. Neither shows how a child reasons with shapes, numbers, or patterns, and neither diagnoses anything on its own. Read within a full evaluation, though, the TOPS-3 answers a question an IQ test does not ask directly: when this child has to think out loud, does language help or get in the way?

Adults curious about the broader construct can measure it directly. The RIOT IQ test, the Reasoning and Intelligence Online Test, was developed by RIOT IQ with psychometrician Dr. Russell T. Warne for adults 18 and older. It includes 15 subtests across six cognitive indices (verbal reasoning, fluid reasoning, spatial ability, working memory, processing speed, and reaction time), takes about 52 minutes, and reports scores on the same mean-100, standard-deviation-15 scale. Like the TOPS-3, it does not replace an individually administered diagnostic evaluation. What it offers is a normed estimate of general reasoning ability that a language-based test cannot provide. You can learn more or take the test at RIOT IQ.

No. The TOPS-3 measures language-based thinking and reasoning through picture stimuli and spoken answers. It reports one Problem Solving Index on a 100-and-15 scale, but it does not sample the range of abilities a full-scale IQ score summarizes.

PRO-ED lists the TOPS-3E: NU for children aged 6 years 0 months through 12 years 11 months. The companion TOPS 2-Adolescent covers ages 12 years 0 months through 17 years 11 months.

The publisher reports about 35 minutes for the elementary test and about 40 minutes for the adolescent version. Both are given individually.

Making Inferences, Sequencing, Negative Questions, Problem Solving, Predicting, and Determining Causes. All six are answered orally in response to pictures.

They are the same test with updated norms. The TOPS-3E: NU, released by PRO-ED in 2018, re-standardized the 2005 LinguiSystems test on a new stratified sample, screened items for bias, and renamed the Total Score the Problem Solving Index.

PRO-ED sells it at qualification Level B, which covers speech-language pathologists, educational diagnosticians, special educators, school psychologists, and other professionals with graduate training in assessment. Results should be interpreted by a qualified clinician as part of a broader evaluation.

1. PRO-ED. (n.d.). TOPS-3E: NU: Test of Problem Solving-Third Edition Elementary: Normative Update (Complete Kit) [product page]. proedinc.com

2. PRO-ED. (n.d.). TOPS 2-Adolescent: Test of Problem Solving 2-Adolescent (Complete Kit) [product page]. proedinc.com

3. PRO-ED. (n.d.). Qualifications policy.. proedinc.com

4. Texas Education Agency. (n.d.). Test of Problem Solving, Elementary, Third Edition: Normative Update [TSLAT assessment summary]. txautism.net

5. Bowers, L., Huisingh, R., & LoGiudice, C. (2005). TOPS 3: Elementary, table of contents [Examiner's manual excerpt]. LinguiSystems. mindresources.com

6. Western Psychological Services. (n.d.). TOPS-3E:NU: Test of Problem Solving, Elementary, Third Edition Normative Update [product page]. wpspublish.com

7. Gallinat, E., & Spaulding, T. J. (2014). Differences in the performance of children with specific language impairment and their typically developing peers on nonverbal cognitive tests: A meta-analysis. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 57(4), 1363-1382. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Hero photo: A solved wooden interlocking puzzle. Photo by Poulpy, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped).