Diagnostic Value of IQ Test Results

Post Reply New Topic

I mentioned this in another thread, but realized I might be hijacking someone else's thread and thought I should start my own. Two days ago I took the WAIS as part of my autism assessment. To the best of my memory the scores were:

VCI: 147
POI: 136
WMI: 117
PSI: 93

FSIQ: 129

I know that people with ASD often have an unusual distribution of scores. My evaluator was wishy-washy on the diagnostic value of my results. I was wondering if to the knowledge of the community these were consistent with someone with ASD.

I think mine were

VC: 138
PR: 121
WM: 115
PS: 120

FSIQ: 130

Not quite so disparate as yours, but disparity is the diagnostic feature here.

IQ alone isn't an indicator of ASD as one can have a high IQ an average IQ or a low IQ and still be on the spectrum.

Your PSI score is lower than the others, so that might have some relevance. Same with the WMI, which might point to sensory-related issues.

Overall, though it isn't much of an indicator of ASD or not. It's just a piece of the puzzle.

The large gap between your VIQ and PIQ are a definite red flag for some kind of disability. It's very common for those with ASD to have a very high score in one subsection and a comparatively low score in another. The typical gap between VIQ and PIQ for a normal person is five points or less. Anything greater than 10 is considered clinically significant. My VIQ is 141, PIQ 94, FSIQ 120, but the wide gap between the subscores makes the FSIQ measurement less accurate. My evaluator estimated my "true intelligence" using a general achievement score, which calculated my average without being skewed by the discrepancy created by the subscores.

I have knowledge of when I took IQ tests twice as a kid:

Verbal: 129
Performance: 115

Verbal:128
Performance:105

There was a note in my report that the examiner felt the verbal score was more accurate because I showed an inclination toward perfection so strong I did the test slow.

Some diagnosticians consider it a sign of a developmental disorder, some a facet of autism specifically, while others consider it a mere quirk. It depends on your doctor and the specific nature of the discrepancies. In my case, my PIQ < VIQ gap was 20 points, and my biggest gap was between my working memory < VIQ at 28 points. All my scores except for VIQ are in the average range. That led one doctor to a diagnosis of a developmental disorder alongside autism, due to early signs of giftedness, while another said that I'd probably just developed my verbal abilities to their fullest potential. Personally, I'm not sure how accurate my results were because I was shutting down during the last hour or so of testing (which might be why I scored so much lower on the last tasks I was given - even so low as in the .4 percentile). I crashed hard two minutes after leaving the office and went 100% into a nonverbal stupor for almost an hour. In the end, it isn't an exact science, and there will always be different ways of interpreting IQ results. Regardless of what the "big picture" looks like, they should tell you what your specific, root impairments are.