Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Help with WISC-V composite scores

Hi - New poster here and long time lurker, hoping to get some (more) help from the community. Also, at the risk of dating myself, an infrequent poster to online forums in general, so I apologize in advance for any inaccurate abbreviations!

My DC recently took the WISC-V and I was hoping to get some help calculating GAI and FSIQ from someone who has access to the standard tables.

The report we received did not include extended norms, but did include raw scores. Because DC's scores on some subtests would change with extended norms, I think this would change GAI and FSIQ, but the summed scaled scores are too low to show up on the extended norm table.

GAI scaled score: 94
FSIQ scaled score: 120
Ages 6:0–6:3 band

Thank you in advance! These forums have been so helpful to us over the years as we navigate the lonely journey of raising a child at the edges of the bell curve.

Welcome, KIcsscDC!

If you don't mind, clarify for me again what scores you are posting. Are these the sums of scaled scores contributing to the GAI and FSIQ? Or are these the sums of raw scores (not clear what you meant by "did include raw scores"). How many subtest scores might be affected by use of extended norms? At this child's age, it would apply only to 19s, and would typically be recommended only if both subtests in the same cluster were 19s (so both Si and Vo, or both MR and FW; given that you only report GAI and FSIQ, it appears the VSI is not available). If I am assuming correctly, it looks like you had 4 19s and an 18 in the GAI? Age is less relevant to the lookup tables if you already have scaled scores.

The summed scaled scores cannot show up on the extended norms, since you need extended scaled scores to do so. If what you have are scaled scores, there should be no individual scores higher than 19 (if no extended norms). If what you have is raw scores, than there might be some that are higher than that.

With a recent evaluation report, I am surprised you do not have any composite standard scores or equivalent (e.g., percentiles). There should be some interpretive narrative that explains the GAI and FSIQ findings. What kind of descriptive language is included in the report? That might help in identifying what your data actually represents.

Hi aeh! - Thank you for your reply!

Yes, what I listed are the sums of the scaled scores that contribute to GAI and FSIQ. (Calculated from the raw scores using the extended norms table where applicable).

I can see why it'd be confusing. All I meant to say was that the report included raw scores, so I was able to see where the 19s listed on the report would have been reported as higher scaled scores if extended norms were.

We were given composite scores: FSIQ 145, GAI 151
And maybe these composites already take into account extended norms? I assumed they didn't because the composite given for VCI would have been reported differently had extended norms been used and none of the individual scores listed are higher than 19. In the GAI, DC had 2 19s and 1 18, and extended norms would have impacted Si and Vo.

The report was written for schools not parents. - It's fairly generic by design and likely didn't include extended norms because that's what the schools requested. So, we are trying to understand the information a bit better on our own.

I hope this clarifies things a bit. Thanks for your help aeh!

That makes sense.

The same document that allowed you to determine the extended scaled scores also has tables for extended index scores. The only one that would be relevant for your child is the extended VCI, based on what you've reported. You are correct that the sum of scaled scores even given the extended norms on VCI subtests is too low for the extended GAI, so not reporting an extended GAI is appropriate. There's also a pretty big difference between the VCI and the other areas. The appropriate extended measure in this case is the VCI of 171, in contrast to the FRI (which you should have), which I'm assuming is in the 130s or 140s. That 30 or 40 point difference is substantial, and speaks to characterizing this learner more as profoundly verbally gifted, and moderately gifted in nonverbal domains. Although that could change on future assessments, since this is a very young examinee, and the assessment is only capturing this moment in development not only of cognitive abilities, but of skills involved in testability.