WISC-IV results... can anyone explain?

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Thanks problem solved!

Last edited by blacksheep on 02 Jan 2011, 5:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

She has what's called a scatter. Large differences between her abilities in different areas. It indicates a learning disorder, and usually means her full scale IQ score is a poor representation of her true ability, one way or another/

Thanks Chronos!

I checked her report again and the counselor did say she believed the assessment accurate, BUT the counselor did mention both in her verbal IQ and with her perceptual that there were even great differences among the subtests of each. So I looked up scatter and IQ. How can it even be classified accurate? So if we don't agree with her IQ report and our options our limited because of location, would you happen to have any other suggestions?

Last edited by blacksheep on 28 Dec 2010, 2:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That is actually very typical of people with ASD. As children (and adults for that matter) we can excel in certain areas and lag behind in others.

If this evaluation was conducted by the school as part of an evaluation for special education eligibility, you have a right to an additional independent evaluation from a professional of your choice at public expense, provided that the professional you choose is qualified to conduct such an evaluation. If you disagree with the results of the evaluation, you should indicate that to the school, preferably in writing on the meeting report, but if not there, in a letter or e-mail to the school...and keep a copy of your letter. Tell them you disagree with the findings and that you want an independent educational evaluation. Find a private evaluator who has experience dealing with children who have the kind of issues your child faces, and have them do the evaluation.

Her full scale IQ is actually only relevant in the sense that, over all, she is not below average.

If she did not have such scatter, and most of her sub test scores clustered around 103, then what that would say is that 103 is a true reflection of her abilities...she doesn't have any glaring weaknesses, but she doesn't have any particular strengths either. There would be not much to focus on improving, and not much to foster either.

However, since she has the scatter, she has some fairly significant weakness, and fairly significant strengths. She can over come some of those weaknesses with the proper help, and go very far with her strengths with the proper nurturing.

So you shouldn't be upset that the full scale IQ us what it is because,unlike the person with no scatter, there's not much significance in it other than to show she's not mentally ret*d.

Concerning her placement. I doubt special ed is the appropriate place for her and I think it unlikely that she will be happy there, because she is actually quite bright, and probably much more aware and insightful than she appears. She likely just has slow processing speed in the sense that it takes the information longer to propagate to her conscious brain.

I will re-iterate my Rubik's cube analogy.

Assume you have three people and they are blind folded. You are going to time them at a task in which they must solve a Rubik's cube without knowing an algorithm to do so before hand. However, before they start solving the Rubik's cube, they must first figure out that it's a Rubik's cube they are holding. Only then, may they remove the blindfold.

The first person takes 3 seconds to figure out it's a Rubik's cube, and never solves it.
The second person takes 12 seconds to figure out it's a Rubik's cube, and solves it in three days.
The third person takes five minutes to figure out it's a Rubik's cube, and solves it in an hour.

Your daughter is the third person.

It's difficult to do much about her processing speed. This is likely from a right brain processing issue that's very common in those with AS. Instead of focusing on getting her to work faster, demand they give her the time she needs to finish her work correctly.

As far as her verbal ability, you can help foster that talent by giving her books to read, and engaging her in interesting conversations about a subject of interest of hers...my family was quite big on critical thinking and I took up reading research papers in highschool....I knew how to write them by the time I got to college and was quite good at writing essays.