Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WISC IV results with large discrepancy UPDATE

My 6.5 yr old DD completed the WISC with these results.

VCI 104
PRI 141
WMI 116
PSI. 131

Due to the 37 point difference her FSIQ 130, is apparently not valid. She has also taken the OLSAT with these results.
SAI 132
VERBAL 131
NONverbal. 123


Any insight to the large discrepancy between VCI and PRI? Her PRI score is 99.7 percentile. She also had two 18 scaled scores on the subtests within Perceptual Reasoning.


WISC subtest
SI 12
VC 11
CO 10
BD 14
PC 18
MR 18
DS 12
LN 14
CD 14
SS 17

She was not tested on the 5 optional subtests nor the WIAT. Although, with the large difference I would like additional testing. She has Spanish twice weekly as part of regular class, but is not fluent. The psychologist did not have an accent. I don't think my DD has ADD or ADHD - she has not had any previous issues concentrating or staying on task.
Is it possible to get incorrect scores for one section of the test? From her OLSAT results I was surprised to see such a differene in verbal test scores even though they are only slightly related.

Do you have subtest scores?

Is your child bi-lingual? Any issues you area aware of with hearing or speech? Did the tester have a strong accent that your child wasn't used to?

A big gap like this is often a flag for a learning disability or some other issue, but there are other factors that can cause this kind of a result. Knowing the pattern of subtest scores (Were there three 10's, or two 14's and a 2?) can sometime help you figure out where to look for the cause.

Hello,
Interesting because your post seems almmost exactly what I was going through this time last year. My son had a HUGE discrepancy with his scores as well. The one that was extremly low was the VCI as well. I don't have his scores here but will review and update you on them as well as what I learned.

Good luck

Like I mentioned in the last e-mail your e-mail sounds similar to my son as he had a large discrepancy as well. His scores are below. We struggled with the results and the fact that our school district said his overall score was a 126 which was obviously brought down due to the VCI. Everything I read said when you have a descrepency of 23 pts or more you shouldn't give an overall score. They really should have done more testing but of course they didn't. He hit the ceiling on two of the areas within the PSI which is another reason we didn't know if the score was valid. His PSI was at 99%. Our son has ADHD and was on medication when taking the test. He is much quieter when on the medicine we had wondered how that played into the VCI. Knowing that this part of the test is more verbal. If he wasn't wanting to talk much or answer questions it really could have impacted his test results. It also seemed this part of the test could be a little more subjective which was interesting to me as we know the school district would not have necessarily wanted to put him in the gifted range (which is 127 overall score) because we were inquiring on accelerating up in one subject. Just seemed really odd to us that he scored 1 point below this and it was the verbal portion of the test that clearly pushed the score lower.

What did you ever find out about your childs results and what they might mean?

I would love to hear what you learned.

Thanks!

Sum of Scaled scores:
Verbal Comprehension VCI 100
Perceptial reasoning PRI 127
Working Memory sum of scaled WMI 126
Processesing Speed PSI - 133
Full scale FSIQ = 126