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.
