Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WISC IV Test Results

My 8 year old took the WISC IV in December in anticipation of him going to public school for 2014-2015 school year. I received the test results as follows:

Full Scale IQ 118

Verbal Comprehension Index 116
Similarities 14
Vocabulary 14
Comprehension 11
Information 17
Word Reasoning 15

Perceptual Reasoning Index 115
Block Design 13
Picture Concepts 12
Matrix Reasoning 12
Picture Completion 15

Working Memory Index 129
Digit Span 14
Letter-Number Sequencing 16
Arithmetic 14

Processing Speed Index 91
Coding 7
Symbol Search 10
Cancellation 14

His FSIQ is not high enough, of course, for the gifted program in our district. He will start public school in the 3rd grade in the Fall. I had him take the WISC just in case his scores were significant enough for the gifted program which they are not. When I asked the tester for feedback, he just said he is a bright kid who could benefit for advanced classes.

The report reflected the following: "However, due to the significant variability present among the four Index Scores, his abilities may be best understood through examination of each individual Index." I'm not quite sure what this means?

The Tester really didn't go over that statement with me when we met to review the results. I went to the local College in my area to have him tested. I put the results away once I realized he would not qualify for the gifted program and based on the Tester's feedback(or lack thereof). Now that school is almost out, I started thinking about what we can do in the summer to prepare him for 3rd grade. I want to focus on any areas of deficit to help him excel in 3rd grade. I have talked to his teachers. I have been told he is a very bright kid. His best subjects are Math, Science and Social Studies. We will focus on Reading and Writing.

I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on how my son learns, anything that I can focus on to help him excel in 3rd grade. Any thoughts on his WISC score.

Thanks,

I was hoping that someone could give me some feedback. I believe that the WISC IV provides objective evidence of a child's academic needs. The only issue I have, I guess is that because I sought testing for the gifted and talented program, the tester did find the need to provide any feedback. Overall my 8 year is an excellent student. He loves Social Studies Science and Math. Of these three subjects his lowest score is a 95. He does very well on achievement tests as well. He has scored in the 99th percentile in Science and Language Arts. Although he does not like to read. He dreams of math problems and loves science experiments. I'm just trying to figure out how best to meet his needs. If anyone could read my original post above and give me your thoughts, I would appreciate it.

Thanks

Overall, he has a nice, solid, profile, with a couple of notable differences:

1. His processing speed is substantially lower than the other areas, especially in the subtests that use fine-motor and visual discrimination. This usually has implications for written language (handwriting, spelling, length and complexity of written responses) and overall speed when completing paper-and-pencil tasks. Are any of these concerns? If so, this may suggest a possible learning disability. I notice that you mention emphasizing reading and writing over the summer.

2. He has a good working memory, which is greatly to his advantage in school, especially in math. Between this and possible relative weaknesses in processing speed, this may contribute to his preference for math over reading.

3. I am assuming the achievement tests to which you refer are group standardized tests, such as the SAT/10? These kinds of tests tend to have rather low ceilings (about two grade levels above), so it's difficult to extrapolate too much from the results, other than that he is a bright young man with a good store of general knowledge (which you already knew).

I honestly can't help you figure out his scores as I am just learning about all this myself. I would go back to the tester and have them go over all the scores with you. He sounds like he is doing great and as a parent you will learn a lot by observing what he likes to learn, and how he likes to learn. In addition ask his last teacher to talk with you about what s/he observed. If he is not gifted (but very bright) he will not have a lot of the challenges with traditional schooling that many of the people on these boards have so you have more options. I hope this helps .

Oops other more informed people already answered- great

My son had similar test results on his WISC IV with exception to the vocabulary (18) and letter-number sequencing (19). However, according to above grade level testing he is highly mathematically gifted. His psychologist will actually be testing him with the Stanford-Binet this summer to try to get an accurate mathematical IQ. He just finished 3rd grade and will be taking a 3 month pre-algebra course through Johns Hopkins this summer. You may want to discuss the differences in testing with your child's psychologist.

What do you mean by mathematical IQ, and how do you get it from this test?

The SBV has a Quantitative Reasoning area score on it, which has a better correlation to math ability. The new WISC-V will also have an optional Quantitative Reasoning Index on it, which will use Arithmetic and Figure Weights (currently a subtest only on the WAIS-IV, for age 16+).

What aeh said

My son's WISC IV, while showing above average intelligence, did not correlate with his mathematics at all. We have known that while he is advanced in his reading and verbal skills, he is not gifted in that area. However, he is highly gifted in math as he shows every time he takes any above level testing. It can be highly frustrating fighting the schools to get the actual math classes he needs.