Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Please help with these scores

I would ask the tester if she checked the low scores (Picture Concepts and Similarities) to see if there was too much scatter to allow calculation or interpretation of the index scores. I would strongly suspect that the PRI is not a "valid" score due to subtest scatter but I don't have the tables you need to be able to tell for sure that the difference rises to the level of significance. Generally speaking subtest scatter of 7 points rises to the level of significance but it depends on the subtests being compared. There's a 4 pt discrepancy between the Picture Concepts score of 7 and the mean for the PRI of 11. That seems to me to be large enough that it would merit a cautious interpretation of the PRI (at the very least).

It's interesting that her scores are rather uniform except for the two subtests that measure the abstract reasoning and conceptualization ability (similarities = verbal, picture concepts = non-verbal). This would suggest that this is an area of relative weakness for her.

The fact that she apparently struggled to achieve the scores she got on those two subtests really emphasizes that this is an area of relative weakness to my mind.

I would consider following up with a WJ III ACH extended battery if possible. This may help clarify things for you and show whether there are any academic areas where she has corresponding weakness.

Patricia