WAIS IV: how was your block design performance?

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I had my first battery of tests for my AS assessment today, and spent most of the two hours working on the IQ test, the WAIS IV. Those of you who took it know about the spatial reasoning tests, specifically block design. I'm very nervous because I'm pretty sure I bombed it, and that's one area where autistics are supposed to be really good. If you did this test, what did your score come out as?

I don't want to give score numbers, but I'm comfortable saying that my block design was one of my weaker subtest scores. How I felt doing it was like my hands wouldn't do what I wanted, and like I knew what to do but like my hands wouldn't cooperate.

Hit the ceiling, so I don't really know. It was a very easy task to me.

Not everybody is good at it, though. Some autistics are actually pretty bad at visual-spatial stuff, and better with words and numbers. As Tuttle pointed out, there's two parts to it--you have to be able to solve the problem in your head, and you have to be able to use your hands to create the solution for the examiner to see. They're actually two different skill sets, and to do well you have to be good with both.

What I did really bad at were those cards with pictures on them that you're supposed to put in order to make a story. The first one made some sense, but after that it was all flying over my head. I think it was just hard because I'm not very good at figuring out what the people in the pictures might be thinking.

Point being, expect to have strengths and weaknesses, and take advantage of what you learn about yourself. And do NOT let yourself be defined by your IQ. If it's high, they assume you don't need help; if it's low, they assume you can't do anything. Either assumption is wrong. Make sure that the professionals you work with are aware that you are an individual, not an IQ score.

Block design was my highest score. I don't know the exact score I got for any of my subtests.

But that's just me -- Callista is right: not all autistics are good at visual-spatial stuff (there is research out there that supports the idea there is no single IQ profile that identifies all autistics).

Interesting. I'm pretty sure my verbal comprehension score will wind up being my highest. It was the only one I felt really confident about. I've had my verbal ability measured before in elementary school and it was in the 91st percentile, so I guess I'll see. I haven't taken the picture-story test yet, but I have another day of testing to go, so I may get it eventually. I hope so, seeing as so far there has been no test to measure my social cognition at all; after the WAIS it was mostly fine motor skills assessments, drawing shapes and staying inside lines and such. Pretty sure I didn't do very well on the drawing shapes test either.

On WAIS-IV, the Perceptual Reasoning Index includes: Block Design, Matrix Reasoning, Visual Puzzles. Out of these 3 tests, I scored lowest on Block Design. This was a bit of a surprise as I really enjoyed that test. However, it is a timed test. And, I took a bit longer on one of the designs, than I should have.

Interestingly, percentile-wise, I scored higher in the Perceptual Reasoning Index area than all others (including the Verbal Comprehension Index). Which I am told is odd for someone with Aspergers.

And Callista is right. The main purpose of the IQ test is to understand the relative strengths/weaknesses in cognitive processing. My neuropsychological testing exposed issues with complex memory processing, which impacts Executive Functioning and Multi-Tasking. This was uncovered by the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS-IV).

NOTE: I took Block Design on the WISC-III, not WAIS-IV.

When I was 8, it was my highest subscale score at 19 (and the only one on the performance IQ that was at 10 or higher). At 15, however, the subscale score dropped to 12 and was not my highest score (and again, it was the only one on the performance IQ that was at 10 or higher).

I have not taken it since I was 15; I think I took it at other ages before 15, but I don't have the results.

EDIT: My IQ scores at each age:

age 8, verbal IQ = 100, performance IQ = 90, total IQ = 95
age 15, verbal IQ = 131, performance IQ = 93, total IQ = 113

By age 15, I had gotten really good at my verbal skills, but continued to lag in performance.

I took the WAIS-IV last summer as part of occupational rehab assessments. I don't mind sharing my scores: my VIQ is in the 99th %-ile, Processing Speed was 95th, and my perceptual reasoning is total crap, basically. It's super frustrating bc it's like, "yay half of me is smart!" and the other half can barely do basic math. Grar! It was interesting, tho, bc I'd always wondered if I had dyscalculia or some other related LD. Was nice to finally have proof of it, although I don't know what sort of help I could get for it as an adult. (???)

I did pretty well on processing speed, but my perceptual reasoning & working memory scores were the worst, along with arithmetic. (I'm definitely a liberal arts major cliche...I'd love to grok math but my brain just won't cooperate. *sigh*) My scores were: Block Design 10, Matrix Reasoning & Visual Puzzles were both 8.

I loved the crap out of the Block Design test and was annoyed that I didn't get more time to finish it correctly. (I did pretty well up until the very last one, and I think my perfectionism/slowness is what pulled my score down.) I struggled with the test of reciting the number strings backwards, and the one with the visual puzzles where they kind of morphed or something like that? (Different shapes and colors, and I vaguely remember them looking kind of pointillist? I guess those are the visual puzzles?)

My results weren't explained to me very well in terms of capabilities/deficits, so trying to make sense of what these scores mean has been a little frustrating. Basically the OVR counselor was like, "You are smart, why are you even here?" Uh...because I can't people and I'm an anxiety-ridden mess who can't function socially at work anymore?

Score was the second lowest, quite a gap from the other two.

It was my second highest among the performance subscores, although that still meant it was 2 full standard deviations below my highest score, which was Coding, oddly. Coding was a real outlier, and then the rest of the scores clustered together much lower down, with Block Design as the highest among those. Coding was on par with my verbal subtest scores, which were all the ceiling of the test.

That was my lowest as well. I was looking at the wrong thing in the pictures, focusing on individual details and missing what was actually supposed to be going on. My score for that was actually 3 whole standard deviations below my highest performance subtest score - eep!

Edit: I forgot to mention that I also took the WISC-III at age 15, like beneficii, and those are the results I referred to above. I've had parts of the WAIS-IV administered as part of another assessment, but they didn't do the whole test. I think my subtest score on Block Design for the WAIS was similar to what it was when I was a kid though. I also had the WPPSI (Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence) when I was 3 years old, but there is no block design on that! My performance IQ when I was 15 was practically identical to what it was when I was 3, but my verbal IQ had gone up 20 points. I was given the WISC another time when I was in elementary or middle school, but I don't know the results for that.

I didn't do that picture story thing.

Ja. I did sucky at the Picture Completion when I was 8, making only a 3, my lowest score. Picture Arrangement was a 7.

At 15, though, I improved, with Picture Completion at an 8 (still my second lowest score, though, tied with Coding and ahead of only Object Assembly, in which I made a 7). Picture Arrangement bumped up to a 9.

My score sucked.

I think they may have taken that out for the most recent version (IV). Some of us took either the WAIS III or the WISC III, and that had Picture Arrangement.

WAIS-IV

PERFORMANCE SUBTESTS

Perceptual Reasoning
Matrix Reasoning: 16
Block Design: 17
Visual Puzzles: 17

Processing Speed
Digit Symbol-Coding: 11
Symbol Search: 7

VERBAL SUBTESTS
Information: 14
Similarities: 13
Vocabulary: 15
Arithmetic: 15
Digit Span: 13

Although not necessarily a diagnostic criterion, a higher Verbal Comprehension Index than Perceptual Reasoning Index often related to AS. In my case, it's the opposite. My weakest area is processing speed, which also requires fine motor skills, good short term memory (coding), and the ability to process a certain type of visual information very quickly.