Not to quibble here, but I didn't say substitutions were done post-testing to raise the score - just that that was the usual reason given for doing substitutions.
I agree that substitution post-testing is not the preferred way to handle things and I didn't mean to imply that I agreed with this approach. And it's not clear from the information given whether the substitutions in this case were done a priori or not.
I think there is some controversy about the subject w/in the psych-ed community. Nevertheless there are formula's to use when doing substitutions to adjust for the change - so obviously it's being done, one way or the other.
Even when the substitution is planned in advance, the rational offered for substitution is based on the same assumptions: 1) that the child will perform poorly on the subtests being excluded relative to their expected performance on the substituted subtests and 2) that the better performance is a more accurate assessment of the child's intellectual capacity. While it may not be stated so blatantly, I think higher scores is absolutely the intent of substitution.
We could talk about what constitutes an accurate assessment of intellectual capacity til the cows come home
I too am a little jealous since my son's tester did not make any substitutions and he might have scored higher if she had done so.
