Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WISC-IV question

DS was tested a year and a half ago but I've always been curious. There was a part of the testing that involved a picture of X and Y. It is a long story but I know DS didn't really answer any of that portion and was wondering if that would explain his low WISC PRI-Picture Concepts score. He also did some other tests so it might be unrelated.

His PRI scores were
- edited out

It kind of stands out and I've always been curious.

The picture concepts has really out-of-date pictures as questions. I mean exceedingly out of date, from what I could tell. For example, from what my DS told me one involved an iron (I don't know about y'all, but I know for us - gone are the days when mom would iron dad's work shirts while watching the afternoon soaps!). He did not know what it was. One picture involved a typewriter.... My DS said to me, "There was one picture that looked like a computer keyboard, but not quite and instead of a monitor it had paper coming out of it. I couldn't figure out what it was - a printer? a computer? but where was the monitor? and printer's don't have keyboards?" He has never seen an actual typewriter and quite honestly neither have I, in years and years. There were a few more but I forget them now. Anyway that was my DS's lowest scores but upon hearing the objects pictured I wasn't surprised. What a shame, though - really not a measure of anything the way it is right now.

I realize the questions are secret but honestly didn't think that that was enough info to help anyone since I didn't think the point of the task I was referring to was to identify x and y in the picture. Knowing it was x and y in one picture wouldn't help but perhaps I misunderstood the task or I'm referring to a different part or test altogether. I didn't actually see it to know what was going on, I just know what that on the way home DS babbled about that one picture for almost an hour and was distracted by some hilarious details in it and wouldn't have answered the testers question(s). If that had happened to be a large portion of that score it would make a lot of sense.

If the picture concepts involves a bunch of pictures then bombing one of them wouldn't have made enough of a difference and it is what it is. I've changed the initial post.

Food items are tricky, too, with an increasingly multi-cultural society and more educated families choosing healthier options than the norm. I remember a picture book DS had as a young baby with a page of candy pictures, and he thought a lollipop was a colorful spatula.

I think what you're wondering about from a slightly different angle is - was your ds" relatively low score Picture Concepts score related to his other relatively low scores (I think he h ad dips n processing speed or maybe wm?) or was it just related to how he performed on that one subtest. I know it's been a long time since he was tested, but was,there anything about the s in the report or in your interview with whoever did the testing at the time?

I would be interested in hearing if there is something that might connect a low score on Picture Concepts with low scores on PSI subtests because my dysgraphic ds also had a relatively low score on Picture Concepts.

And on a slightly unrelated tangent - my kid saw a typewriter for the first time last summer.... Ina museum!

polarbear

Yes, that is the picture concepts subtest. And yes, please don't post information about actual test items, as they are a) copyrighted, and b) may compromise test security. Although this particular subtest is not actually about picture identification, so may be at slightly less risk.

The WISC-IV was published way back in the dark ages of 2003, back before iPhones and iPads, and when Blackberry still seemed like a viable product. Item tryouts probably started at least two to three years before that.

And this will soon be a moot point, anyway, as the WISC-V will be out this fall. They have updated the pictures. I didn't look at every item, but I know they did do some significant updates, both to individual items and to the structure of the test. The major ones being dividing perceptual reasoning into visual-spatial and fluid reasoning, and adding new memory tasks. It's supposed to have a better ceiling, so hypothetically should have better utility for the upper extremes.

On the question of picture concepts tracking with other subtests in general: my experience is that, in some children, it doesn't track with the other perceptual reasoning tasks, but instead tracks with the verbal comprehension tasks, as it is more accessible to verbal mediation than the other perceptual subtests. I also find that it is not as predictive of adolescent/adult performance on the older version of the Wechsler as the other perceptual subtests are, perhaps because of that and other qualities. It is a more concrete task than the others, which can be beneficial for students who are more concrete and conventional in their thinking (or understand that kind of thinking well enough to play the game).

Similarities, on the other hand, is a particularly abstract verbal task. Even though both subtests are supposed to be similar in terms of concept formation, starting from two verbal concepts is quite different from starting from two or three images of concrete, (supposedly) familiar objects. Picture concepts is also more vulnerable to exposure, experience, and cultural differences than the other two PRI subtests, because of it's concrete content.

And...one of mine couldn't figure out what letter to put in to complete the word fi_m, l or r, because neither one made sense with the picture of a camera.

Thanks (and sorry again).

polarbear - yes his PSI was 9th%tile and his WMI was 63rd%tile. That is interesting about the dysgraphia. I have looked at many of your posts and have it in the back of my mind.

I'm curious because I wonder if they did miss something like dysgraphia (or something else??).

I'm also curious if there is any chance retesting might result in a higher score if he had answered something for that part instead of going off on a tangent. In order to qualify for a gifted program next year he would need a 99.6%tile in PRI (or VCI but with the exception of the picture concepts the PRI looked like there might be a slim chance). In two years the bar lowers and he easily qualifies with his current scores it just means we have to survive 2 more years in his current school.

I had emailed the psychologist that did the testing and she said that the odds of his score changing were extremely slim to none and said not to retest. There was nothing in the original report regarding the low picture concepts. There was lots on the low working memory and processing speed.