Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Relative variability/changeability of IQ indexes

I don't want to start an emotionally charged debate but rather a respectful discussion as this may be of interest to parents with gifted children. Most parents probably only have at most one set of IQ test scores but many real life observation points over many years. I must admit this has been an item of curiosity for me due to my oldest DS (initially 2E)who has been IQ tested many times over a period of a decade and whose index scores have fluctuated 1 to 3 standard deviations between tests. For example, medical issues that equate brain trauma/damage dropped many of his indices 2 to 3 standard deviations between two administrations of WISC-IV. What was interesting was that the Perceptual Reasoning index was most impacted initially but also the index that naturally rose the most as the brain partially recovered over the period of several years even with minimal academics (about 15%-20% of normal academics). During this same period of brain recovery but minimal academics, the Verbal Comprehension index actually dropped another standard deviation, which the Psychologist attributed to lack of exposure. Interestingly, the Verbal Comprehension index indeed regained this "loss" after a few years of exposure to regular academics. Our observations and other testing (i.e., achievement) also positively correlated to the IQ test results. Obviously, my observations/conclusions/extrapolations may not be valid but here are some of my thoughts as regard PR and VC.

As a giftedness measure, Verbal Comprehension is probably more important for K-12 academics (particularly elementary, followed by middle) and probably more obvious in social settings (even for adults) as well. However, Perceptual Reasoning appears to me to be a more "true" measure of raw intelligence in that it doesn't appear susceptible to factors including enriched/deprived environments, cultural bias, etc. Might these issues result in relatively higher identification of more verbally gifted kids as well as more enriched kids, particularly in elementary and to a lesser extent middle school?