Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Retaking WPPSI III

If you are wondering about what Picture Completion (the optional subtest) assesses.

In this subtest, a child is shown a picture of a scene and he has to identify what's missing from this picture. For example, a child may be shown a picture of a volleyball game where the net is missing and he has to say that what's missing is the net. In order to do that he has to recognize that the scene is of a volleyball game, know that a volleyball game has to have a net, and of course, notice that the net is missing.

An easier item might be a picture of a mouse eating cheese and the mouse's tail is missing. The child has to identify that "what's missing is the tail". For that he has to think in the right mindset and not get frantic searching for what may be missing looking at the background, the cheese, etc.

This subtest tests several cognitive functions: an ability to recognize a whole picture from an incomplete picture, an awareness of one's environment, flexible thinking, as well as attention to detail.

While this subtest did factor into the full scale IQ on WISC III, it was relegated to a supplementary status on WISC IV (and is supplementary on WPPSI III) to pave way for a more abstract reasoning based "Picture Concepts".