Hello! Today I've been thinking about why different subtests and indexes are included in the WAIS scales.. I know about g (general intelligence) and its importance and how its the strongest predictor of IQ.

I was thinking about how processing speed had the lowest g-loading, which means it's the least important index on the wechsler scale for measuring IQ..

So my question is whether you guys have thought about the function of the different areas of measure!? What happens if a person is low in an area but high in another?

I would be happy to read in short about your insights and experiences where someone has an odd profile and what that profile means to the person and his/her adaption to the environment!

My own problem stems from low executive functions which impacts my processing speed a lot! Since my verbal flexibility is low I can't speak to people in an efficient manor and I tend to get in trouble because I get stuck when things require me to adapt faster then I am able to!

In general I think Ive had problems with adapting to new circumstance because of this despite having high scores on other indexes!

I am looking forward to seeing what insights aeh may have to share in response to your post, Klangedin.

I tried to PM aeh to draw their attention to this thread, but unfortunately received a message that aeh is over their limit for Private Messages. Therefore I am hoping that my post will help draw aeh's attention and response.

Clearly I am long overdue for some inbox cleanups!

Some context: the field has a long-running conversation regarding how much weight to put on measures below the global measure, and whether the domains are sufficiently robust to interpret. So keep in mind that the most psychometrically sound measure is, all other things being equal, still the global one (the FSIQ on the WAIS/WISC/WPPSI family of instruments). This is not by accident, btw, as the original author set out principally to obtain a good measure of g. The indexes emerged in stature later, mainly through the work of his successors (notably Kaufman, who is best known for his work on the WISC-R and -III).

That being said, there is data to support the four domains identified by the WAIS-IV, although there are, again, ongoing discussions about what they actually consist of. Some are more obvious. VC has pretty good general consensus that it mostly is related to verbal reasoning, but with overlay effects from an individual's access to rich langauge sources over the course of their history. It seems to be reasonably predictive of language-based achievement, for most people (e.g., reading, writing, communication)--but not everyone. PR appears to be mostly related to nonverbal reasoning, with a heavy visual component. It seems to have some connection to mathematical achievement and mechanical skills.

WM and PS are a bit more ambiguous, mainly because a lot of different attributes or conditions can affect them. For example, WM can be lowered by attentional dysregulation, such as that found in persons with ADHD or other executive function challenges, but it can also be affected by emotional interference. And some people do well on WM but not on other measures of memory, or vice versa. We do know that tasks in this category are often reflective of a person's phonological loop, which is the length of sequential auditory information that you can hold in short-term memory, prior to transferring to long-term storage. A longer span turns out to have significant correlations to strengths in acquiring fluent phonetic reading skills, as well as in math achievement.

Here I'll throw in an example of a divergent profile that might be familiar to some readers: persons with high VC and low WM might (not always, as there are other factors too) be among those who are quite strong in oral language and comprehension or expression of complex verbal reasoning, but struggle to learn basic reading or spelling skills. Sometimes they can discuss topics at a high level, but generate unexpectedly simplistic written language.

PS likewise has many possible pathways to lower performance (which is why clinical observation and interpretation by a skilled professional are important). A lower score might result from fine-motor difficulties (the physical act of generating the responses efficiently), or visual perceptual difficulties--especially tracking, or decision speed, or anxiety/perfectionism, to name a few. WAIS's PS can also be described as clerical speed, to emphasize that not a lot of reasoning is involved in it. There are some other speed tasks that involve other skills, such as various types of retrieval fluency measures (verbal fluency, naming items based on a provided category; naming fluency, naming images of familiar items or symbols, computational fluency), with or without the fine-motor component.

Whatever PS is truly measuring in an individual person, it does appear to have some patterns of need areas. When it's not mainly motor speed, weaker performance in this area does sometimes appear to play out in real life as difficulty keeping up with the pace of interpersonal interactions of various kinds, both academic and social. They may be able to descrie appropriate social reasoning and perception in the hypothetical, but find that the speed of real life passes them by before they are able to read and respond to social situations.

Your own profile includes some qualities not assessed in much depth on the WAIS (e.g., verbal flexibility). I would submit that the challenge area in flexibility (what we call "shift") may be more impactful than the slow speed itself. And the way you've phrased it suggests that the low PS is a symptom or result of the low shift, not a cause. It may be helpful to learn a collection of clear but socially-acceptable verbal requests for wait time, so you don't feel rushed when you are generating a communication. For example, "I'm thinking," "give me a moment," "let me give that some thought," "I'm going to give that the time it deserves." Or you can buy time for adapting and processing by reflecting what you've heard back to the other conversational partner: "So what I hear you saying is..." "If I understand correctly..."

I have a standing interest in the different ways the SBV address WM vs the WISC. And what significant differences may imply. My children all have relatively poor, or actually poor performance on WISC WM, with good to gifted range results in the SBV WM. This seems to be related BOTH to numbers vs words, and to how meaningful the content is. They can't retain things that aren't meaningful to them. All of them learned to read more like each other than how schools insisted kids learned to read (context driven not word driven). This was true of my very dyslexic child, with the lowest VC of my kids, and even more true of my exceptionally verbally gifted child.

As beginner readers the hardest words in a sentence were "the" & "and", and other words that convey no meaning on their own. Faced with "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" the hard words would be "the" & maybe "over" and they'd quite possibly struggle with "the" both times it appeared.

Once cracking reading, and with typing provisions, they did not go on to have limitations in written expression, far from it, even the dyslexic child. Actually my child with the highest digit span (by two standard deviations or more) has the most trouble with written expression, even with typing. Interestingly, now that I have checked: this child has the lowest WM scores on the SBV, though their WM scores are closer between the two tests than my other two, who had dramatic differences between WISC & SBV WM.

I've had the opportunity to talk with a psychiatrist recently as well as a psychologist because my diagnosis of schizophrenia is under questioning.

The psychiatrist came to the conclusion that my disability comes out in social situations exactly as Aeh described and that most of my "emotional disturbances" comes out because I cant keep up in "real life" and how social situations makes me unable to answer in the quality I want. I recieved my highest score in similarities which is verbal reasoning so my ability to think logically with words is not poor, its actually a strength but what happens is that I have to put in a lot of extra time when I get home to polish my expressions.. When I talk about something I'm already done with I think it amazes people but when people see me in how I interact and talk with people they think I'm an asshole.

The assholery comes from having to cut out a lot in this world because I cant simply give people a quick answer that i dont already know and feel disappointed in myself when I hear the answer I give..

In my life I've had a certain pattern, its been that I've not pursued any success or tried to maintain friends but I've had interests where I think I'm very accomplished..

My conclusion of what processing speed is, which is my main weakness (disregarding executive functions) is that its how long it takes for you to complete something, or how much work you can finish under a certain amount of time.

However it might seem, processing speed is reliant on so many factors to function and is hampered by my poor flexibility and semi poor associate learning ability.

The doctor thought that my circumstance could best be described my autism with the similarities of having difficulties with social interaction and poor flexibility but I know that my ability to read social queues is very good, It's just that interacting with things that are out of my flexibility makes it seem I'm disabled.

Anyhow, I think the life I've gotten from living with schizophrenia diagnosis is well suited for someone like me and that it would be difficult to attain anymore in the "people world" than what I already do.

What I've done for the last year and a half is exposing me to social situations and re-tutored myself to make myself able to tolerate being social.

I'm glad your recent explorations have helped bring some of your life experiences into focus. You should be especially proud of your endeavors over the last year toward growth, and giving yourself a wider reportoire of skills.

And I would agree that sometimes (perhaps, often) the label for a condition is less important than whether it is helpful in improving one's functional experience of self, other and one's place in the community.

I've found a new answer to my "disability"... It's actually personality-related and not "aptitude" related.. I do not have slow processing speed because of flexibility, actually I'm Extremely low in orderliness which is a dimension which values order, routine and procedure..

I am very quick at learning and my mind does not work linearly as it more or less bounces around in my imagination when I reason.. It's like I collect information in my environment that is important to me, "what I notice" or "what is relevant to me" and use that for my reasoning.

The reason doctors can't establish a diagnosis is because I dont give them an orderly answer when they try to question me. I just think their questioning is an assault on my senses..

This is not giftedness related but I find that I've had trouble since I got the wrong information from the psychiatry and adapted to suit the estimate of me, as with the low verbal flexibility and executive functions bit.. Before anyone try to label there has to be a concesus of what the person is like..

The big issue for me is that I dont respond in an orderly fashion, it's like my mind dont focus on a particular thing just because someone else believes it to be true.. The last year, the biggest thing I've learned is that people aren't like me but they like to punish me for what I think is correct behavior simply because they don't understand..

One guy at my daily activities is so scared of me and feels so insecure that he starts yelling. A grown man that has worked with people his entire life and still can't manage to settle down. I know of his situation though so I'm not harsh on him but I have a very good sense of what people are feeling and when they hurt themselves I have no trouble in pointing it out..

"It's just that people don't know you..."

[SPAM] I hate life sometimes.. ;P