Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Interpret WISC iv scores - help

Have been searching a long time and I can not find any explanation for my son's WISC iv scores:
VCI - 91
PRI - 140
WMI - 105
PSI - 80

He is currently diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder and ADHD (inattentive type), but still feel that something is being missed.
Has anyone seen these types of scores? Any further tests suggested?

Scores like these aren't common, but they do pop up now and again. I would expect a child who loves legos, building toys, any pre-engineering type activity, but can't really express himself verbally and is anxious/frustrated as a result. I think of it like holding a hand of cards in a card game - there is that 'Ace high' but nothing else in the suit to support it. I would use his impressive strengths in PRI to 'fun up' every other activity you hothouse with. If this doesn't describe your son, then I would say 'more tests.' Another interesting way to get a handle on your child is to take them to private schools and ask them "What do you see?" Even if you don't enroll, there is a lot to be learned. One commonly missed thing is enrichment in the strenghts.

How old is your son? Are there other family members with similar profiles? Remember that anxiety/depression or ADD could easily be depressing the VCI,WMI, or PSI - or even the PRI! This is just one snapshot of the child on one day.

Is any progress being made with the anxiety/depression or ADD?

Best Wishes,
Grinity

Thanks so much for responding. Our family feels so alone dealing with this. To answer your questions...

- My son is 14, but the test was done when he was 10. We still haven't found anyone to help us interpret them in a way that is useful in helping him.

- You are exactly correct about the inability to express his self verbally and being anxious and frustrated as a result.

- He has never really played with lego or building toys. However, his computer hardware and software knowledge and abilities are exceptional. He is also good with music, and math.

- He was in a depressed state when he took the test.

- He has two younger siblings, but no one else in the family has had these tests done, and no one else has trouble like him.

- Progress with his anxiety and depression has gone backward and we feel that we are back at square one. The ADD portion is actually a recent diagnosis (3 months ago) and we thought we found the missing piece to the puzzle and the medication really improved some of the symptoms greatly. Unfortunately he recently became more depressed and we had to up his anti-depressant medication all of which landed him in the hospital due to persistent thoughts of self harm. He sleeps so excessively that since being released from the hospital he has only been able to attend his last two classes of the day each day.

- He is super sensitive to medication changes so the doctors took him off his ADD medication and his anti-depressant and they are now starting over by giving him a low dose of a new anti-depressant and it will be months until they try adding ADD medication again.


- We finally have the attention of the school psychologist, but she is very busy, so we have no answers (at least not yet).

- His regular Psychiatrist and Psychologist do not seem to have any interest in his WISC scores, but the new school psychologist does, and that is why I am busy trying to find more information again 4 years later.

I have one other question. Is anyone ever considered gifted when they only have a gifted score in the PRI portion of the WISC iv?

My 10 y/o dd is currently seeing a psychologist to sort out possible ADD or anxiety. The psych told us that lower WMI and PSI scores were common in kids with ADD, but she was surprised that dd's VCI and PRI were so high if that was what was going on. She felt the those two might also be depressed with ADD. She also mentioned that anxiety and ADD can look a lot alike and that she wouldn't be comfortable treating ADD until she was more confident that it wasn't ADD-like symptoms being caused by anxiety.

In regard to your question about being gifted with just one high subtest score, I imagine that opinions would differ, but I'd say yes in a twice-exceptional child, which it sounds like your child may be. I wouldn't call a child with one high subtest on a group test (like the CogAT, OLSAT, etc.) gifted necessarily b/c those aren't technically intelligence tests but more tests of "developed abilities" as the publishers put it. However, IQ should be looking more at intelligence and he is clearly very able in that one area at least.

Hi! Yeah, you caught me needing to decompress for a few minutes (grin).

Okay, if the test was done (1) four years ago and (2) when he was suffering from depression, I think you should consider it to be of limited usefulness now.

Yes, you can be gifted in just one area -- it's not required that you be globally gifted. It can be challenging to be a "spike high" kid (my term, not a technical term I think other people would use), because sometimes people don't recognize that you're *not* as good at everything as you are at the thing you're good at, and because other times people don't recognize that you *are* good at the thing you're good at because they see you as a mostly-average kid. Also, sometimes you're suffering from an unrecognized disability that is pulling down other scores.

I would wonder in his case about an expressive language disability in particular -- that would hit the VC subtests badly. Also, recognize that those VC subtests are free response, and a depressed kid who is sort of mumbling out the minimum he can get away with saying and isn't improving his answers when queried (not uncommon in depression) is going to get low scores. If both of those effects are happening, double-whammy.

Also, note that the WISC PR isn't really actually about "perceptual reasoning" or visual processing per se. It's really much more about fluid reasoning (while the VC is about crystallized intelligence). In fact, the best strategies for several of the PR tasks are verbal. For example, you will do much better on Matrix Reasoning and Picture Concepts if you internally "talk your way through" what you're seeing rather than just trying to pick the answer that "looks right." (This is true for some of the new tasks on the WAIS-IV (adult test), too. Sigh.) So don't assume that a kid with a PR > VC split is necessarily a kid who is going to like to play with Lego. Sometimes they're kids who revel in other kinds of messing-around problem-solving activities.

While you may or may not want to redo IQ testing at this time (if you do, let me suggest adding language testing and projective testing as well), it sounds like there's still some diagnostic confusion, and I am saddened to hear (although not surprised) that neither psychiatrist nor psychologist are interested in thinking about cognitive level as a relevant part of the system. Sigh. That really does need to be taken into account, especially as he moves into adolescence and the whole identity thing. Agreed that a mentor would be good, but given the psychological state you're describing, I would want the mentor to be pretty psychologically savvy. I've got to run right now, but try sending me a note about your location and I might be able to suggest someone either to help with testing or with a consultation.

Bump - great explaination of PRI for Concerned