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I posted something similar in another forum, but I think this is probably a better spot to ask about this.

I am perplexed by my son's WISC-IV scores. He had neuropsych testing due to concerns regarding anxiety and possible mild Asperger's. He has always done very well in school, and was identified at gifted in elementary school, so when I got his IQ test results back, I was surprised. Due to his scores, the psychologist tested for ADHD, using IVA. He scored average in response control, above average to superior in attention scale, and above average in sustained attention, so ADHD was ruled out.
Asperger's was also ruled out, but he was diagnosed with anxiety (not otherwise specified).
Here are his WISC-IV subtest scores. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

VCI: 126
Similarities: 15
Vocab: 13
Comprehension: 15

PRI: 106
Block Design: 9
Picture Concepts: 11
Matrix Reasoning: 13

WMI: 86 (!!!!)
Digit Span: 6
Letter-Number Seq.: 9

PSI: 126
Coding: 15
Symbol Search: 14

Could anxiety have caused some of the lower scores? For instance if he was nervous, it would be difficult to hold a string of numbers in mind and repeat them. I would make a game of it and ask him at home. Make up a string of numbers and see if he has trouble remembering. You didn't say how old he is but maybe if we knew that we could give you an idea of what is average (for instance for a 6 year old, average might be a string of 4 numbers, for a 12 year old it might be more like 6-7).

Hi bade32. That VCI is actually pretty high. VCI supposedly correlates well with school performance. Though I am not a testing expert, I believe that 126 would essentially count as gifted, since 130 would be within the margin of error. Can you say more about what you are surprised about?

What did the neuropsych eval include any other tests beside ability/achievement and ASD/ADHD screens? Just curious if there were any other tests that touched on WM skills.

FWIW, the discrepancy between his VCI and WM is > 1 SD, which I think (I'm not an expert!) means that it is significant. I wonder if some of his anxiety is related to that difference.

One of my 2e kids has a significant memory-related challenge, but it wasn't picked up by the WISC (it stands out on the WJ-III Cognitive and also on specific types of reading assessments).

The other thing I'd wonder - do you have any testing from school, earlier years? Was there any type of screen that was used when he was determined to be "gifted" at school?

Best wishes,

polarbear

Did the neuropsych explain what the basis for the Anxiety NOS Dx was? Or comment on its possible impact on any of the cognitive testing? Anxiety can affect any subtest, but I definitely find that it more often affects the WMI subtests. Also, the block design score may have been affected by anxiety as well, as that is the first subtest administered, and is also timed. Sometimes anxious kids have a hard time settling into the testing situation, especially with a somewhat unfamiliar task type. (It's first because it's supposed to be engaging and non-academic, but that doesn't work out for every kid.)

He has very good verbal skills, a definite relative strength, in what I would consider the gifted range on this instrument, accompanied by excellent and comparable processing speed. These two things put together usually result in high school achievement, especially in the primary and elementary years, when even mathematics is really more of a language task.

If the PRI scores are all described as valid (including bd), I would investigate a nonverbal learning disability (NLD or NVLD). It is not unusual for anxiety to accompany this learning profile, as rules, routines, and meaningful contexts are particularly important for individuals with NVLD. Many are misdiagnosed with Asperger's/HFA, or have it in the differential Dx for a long time (the field is still discussing whether they are truly distinct Dx, but most currently agree that HFA usually have both high visual-spatial and poor social communication, where NVLD may have the social deficits, but will have visual-spatial weaknesses, too). ADHD is also a common confound.

Typically, I would not see this high of a PSI in NVLD, but, in this case, it might be explained by the difference between rote visual-motor tasks (one is not even a significant fine-motor task, while the other is very loosely scored for fine-motor accuracy) and visual-spatial problem-solving tasks. Notably, the PRI task which he did the best on is somewhat amenable to verbal mediation.

On memory, in addition to anxiety, there is the question of how he did on digits forwards vs backwards, which are not exactly the same cognitive task. If, say, backwards were much weaker than forwards, that might support a visual-spatial weakness. If the reverse, I would lean more towards anxiety as the issue, in this case, given the solid IVA attention scores.

I just got back from my son's neuro-pscy. She stated that anxiety was clearly affecting his score. I don't have all my son's numbers from her yet. But my son's working memory and processing speed majorly affected his overall WISC results.

I'm still trying to figure out what little results I have and am not the best to help. But we are in the same type of situation.

I'm surprised about the working memory score....there is such a large difference between VCI and WMI, and he's never had problems with his memory or application of knowledge from memory. I'm thinking that it's so low due to anxiety?

Working memory is not all memory. I thought the same thing, my son has excellent memory. And the sub tests my tester did showed that others forms of memory were quite good. Working memory is the ability to store things in short term memory. For example if you are giving a string of numbers 8, 12, 7, 9, 45 and have to repeat them back. Since this is something I don't do well, I'm not surprised my son doesn't do well.

From my thread from yesterday, where I asked for a description of working memory.

Working memory includes the ability to store things in short-term memory, but is probably best described as the ability to manipulate things in short-term memory. It is believed that auditory and visual wm are somewhat independent processes, so sometimes you will see disparities there. Very high cog persons, especially with good processing speed, may be able to compensate for lower wm by rapidly transferring data to long-term memory, which may be what you are seeing as good memory skills.

AHH.. I'm still coming to grips with the definition of working memory. Excuse me for hijacking yet another thread to understand my son's results.

Maybe this is why my DS claims he doesn't need to study for class, he claims that once he learns a vocabulary and details he KNOWS them and doesn't see the need to look over it again. Maybe he is compensating for his average working memory, by transferring most things to long-term memory. Not sure but it's an interesting theory.

Well, ultimately, we want to store useful things in long-term memory, so his efficiency in this regard is, in the big picture, much more useful and important than any minor inefficiencies in working memory, especially since he seems to have good retrieval, from what you are saying. Where you might see some impact would be if you ask him to multi-task, or follow a long series of directions without visual aids. Especially outside of a meaningful context.

It should be noted that "perceptual reasoning" (or perceptual organization as it was called on the WAIS-III) is actually a fusion of two well-established CHC broad abilities: spatial-visualization and fluid reasoning.

The retainment of perceptual reasoning is due to historical reasons only, and in the upcoming WISC-V (and most likely later the WAIS-V), the index will be teased apart into the aforementioned broad abilities.

When one views the indices in that light, the profile that emerges is that of a child with superior verbal comprehension and processing speed abilities, with above average fluid reasoning abilities. The child's subpar scores on letter-number sequencing and digit-span can be attributed to momentary anxiety, which is most accentuated in his scores on the latter test. When corrected for attenuation, his visual-spatial and working memory (or short-term memory) abilities appear normal.

It would probably not be too audacious to say that your son is mildly gifted, but it appears unlikely that his true IQ exceeds 130. The psychologists data on the depression of scores attributed to anxiety other than the working memory abilities will be valuable in making such a judgment. (To my knowledge, anxiety does not nearly manifest itself to such an extent on other tests).