The Ministry of Health represented by the Directorate General of Primary Health Care started today Monday a training workshop on the Fifth Edition of the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales (SB5) at Majan Continental Hotel.

24 trainees from different public establishments from the MOH, Sultan Qaboos University hospital (SQUH), Ministry of Social Development, and Ministry of Education participated in the training workshop in which Dr. Sami Saleh Al Arjan, psychologist and the assistant of the trainer Mohamed Sulaiman Al Namlah from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) lectures.

The four-day training workshop aimed at training the specialized assistant medical staff on the key skills when administering SB5, method of retrieving both verbal and nonverbal intelligence percentages, and writing comprehensive mental report based on the scale results. It also aimed at building Omani trainers to be capable of training others in the future thus reducing the burden on both Al Masarah hospital and SQUH.

It should be noted that the SB5 is a test that assesses intelligence of individuals and measures multiple dimensions of abilities from two years of age to 85 years and above. The use of Stanford–Binet includes the diagnosis of different cases of cognitive delay in young children, mental retardation, learning disabilities, and giftedness. Previous edition have been used in clinical assessment as well as in the educational and developmental abilities and early childhood.