Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WISC V Scores! Thoughts?

Hello All, I had my second son tested with the WISC V and recently received the results. He seems to not have any of the problems of twice exceptionality that the older one has. As an aside, I am so not used a neurotypical child who does not have dysgraphia - completely floored that this kid can write (and I am sure it is just average but, comparatively, it floors me.) I was a bit surprised at how well he did, in terms of giftedness though, because he also isn't as intense or as verbal as the older one.

Anyway, here are his scores. The one thing that annoys me about this test is the timing aspect ... I get that timing is necessary for certain portions to see how fast or slow a child processes but for the other indices it should not be done in my opinion. As you can see, for Visual Puzzles with the time limit, he got a 9 (average), when the time limit was removed in
Visual Puzzles he got a 15. This kid is very visual spatial and loves puzzles - always has. I got the impression from him that there was some sort of time limit on the block puzzles too - though tester and report didn't mention it.

Anyway, here are the scores. Would love to hear people's feedback or if you notice any issues

FSIQ 132 (98%ile)
GAI 138 (99%ile)

Verbal Comprehension Index 139
Visual Spatial Index 114
Fluid Reasoning Index 128
Working Memory Index 112
Processing Speed Index 108

Similarities 18
Vocab 16

Block Design 16
Visual Puzzles (with time limit) 9
Visual Puzzles (no time limit) 15

Matrix Reasoning 13
Figure Weights 17

Digit Span 11
Picture Span 13

Coding 11
Symbol Search 12

That's a nice solid profile. The relatively lower WMI and PSI are not so low that I would immediately be concerned, especially in a GT kid.

Visual Puzzles has a time limit mainly to keep the test moving. In the standardization sample, it was unusual for children to provide correct responses after the time limit allowed. My experience is that being prompted on a couple of items in a row is enough to clue kids in that they should respond more quickly. Though he may have figured out the timing factor too late to avoid a premature ceiling.

Yes, Block Design is timed, but he seems not to have had difficulty with that.

Thanks AEH!

It's just a shame... I think that the timing aspect ends up hurting a number of kids (especially 2e ones) ... I don't care what the standardization sample shows... I'm sure it hurt (and would hurt) my 2e kiddo (he took Wisc IV so did not have visual puzzles) and even seems to have been detrimental to my neurotypical one (while the score they got without the time limit is shown, it is the lower score that us used in the final scoring)...
It's just that I can see this kiddo is way more gifted in VSI in real life but the test doesn't reflect that (due to the timing issue). It's no real matter I suppose in my son's situation but I feel for the kids that get missed due to that. Faster isn't smarter, necessarily - too much emphasis on speed, 'moving things along', imo

Amen to that!

Anticipating, even now, that DS7 is going to stink up the danged SAT because of this,
Sue

It's true that faster isn't smarter, and I agree that some kids are missed because of this, especially when they don't have a good clinician interpreting their performance, but test developers have to draw a line somewhere...is 30" long enough? 1'? 5'? At some point, it becomes difficult to compare performance across the norm group, if the vast majority of children offer their final response within a certain time period, but one outlier is accurate, but only after a substantially longer time. This is still clinically-useful information, which I would report, and use as the basis for recommending accommodations, but it makes the normative information that should be derived from it less meaningful, if that child's test conditions are that different from those of the standardization sample.

This is why test scores need to be interpreted by a skilled clinician.