Thank you Squirt! We too had that dreaded "end of test fatique" and score drop, but you've just justified my own thinking. We are fortunate in that we DO have the optional subtests, and both VCI and PRI have 5 point spreads (comprehension was low for DS as well, ! A little recalculation buys DS 8 full scale points!

That 9 is definitely an outlier, and it's too bad they didn't do either of the extra subtests for VCI, . It definitely lowered his score.

Hey, I just looked at the book referenced above and see that Information is part of the VCI. We do have a score for that. So, just for fun, can "information" substitute for "comprehension"?

That would give him:
Vocab: 16
Simil: 19
Information: 15

Any idea how that would change his score (not officially, of coures, just for fun)??

Absolutely....his VCI using the 16/19/15 would be 140 (based on a subtotal of 50...better check it, I'm having some champagne, !)

So, if (interrupting champagne!):
VCI 140
PRS 123
WMI 138
PSI 109

Any idea what the FSIQ or GAI would be? Should I call the psych who did the testing and ask her to refigure this?

If you can get it in official writing, even better....I'll share with you how I did DS's if you want. (I made my own writeup!)

But the new FSIQ would be 135, and the new GAI 138 (old 129)!

PRS subtests:
Block 15
Picture 10
Matrix 16

That also makes is this a 5 point spread and therefore not interpretable? Or am I getting carried away? Unfortunately, it doesn't look like there's a substitute for this one.

The numbers themselves don't really matter (although it would be nice to have DYS numbers) but it does explain some of the mismatch between VCI and achievement.

Sorry, everyone, to go off topic.

ETA: oh, and Dottie, I'd love to see how you figured it. Thanks.

Very interesting, all this discussion re: test interpretation/scores.


When I was a SLP working in the schools, it took me for. ever. to write reports because I wanted to get a complete picture of the student. Hah! I guess I had gotten it all wrong back then and was bucking the system and I didn't even know it, lol.

update: Our SpEd referral meeting is tomorrow. Wish us luck.

Well good for you in hindsight there Mombot! I'm sure many kids were helped along the way thanks to your tenacious commitment. A totally ironic, and only funny because it ended well moment for us, was in DD11's 2E blessing meeting, when the speech and language person had her "a-ha" moment(s). She sat throughout the meeting with a dazed look on her face, saying things like "so that's why..." and "that explains my findings". She couldn't make sense of them on her own, and no one had told her this was possibly a gifted child. We had the most engaging conversation one-on-one after the meeting broke up. Talk about the right hand shooting the left hand though, .

Best wishes tomorrow Mombot!

Ooops, missed Squirt up there! All indices on the WISC-IV (and the full scale) are simply read from a chart, based on the subtotal inputs. Granted, "norming" procedures went into that chart's creation, but with it in place, psychologists just add up the inputs, find that total on the chart, and wa-la...you have your index score.

So...when optional subtests are used, you simply drop the old score, and add in the new one. For VCI/PRI, it's still just a total of 3 and only 3 inputs. Once you have that new total, it's back to the charts as if that lower score never happened.

Higher spreads are of course more common in the tails. Once a kid hits one 19, chances are he'll have at least one 14 somewhere along the way. You don't see that much variance with your "ND" 9/10/11 profile. No one score should ever be interpreted in isolation.

Well, we had our meeting last week and while it didn't go as hoped, it went as expected, lol. Okay, maybe it's not that funny, but what else can you do beside expend all that energy getting mad??

Anyway, I wish I had read more of what was on wrightslaw.com because, darnit, what this educational consultant wrote in this article, http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/advo.disagree.heiten.htm, the school pretty much did. The guidance counselor and the teacher are willing to do some trial-and-error things re: accomodations for my dd, but they're approaching it from the position that my dd is a perfectionist and parental expectations are too high, not from a 2E perspective. I just can't get them to understand that it's not just a simple behavioural issue.

So, I've been asking around about what to do and the consensus is to get MORE private testing done and frankly, we can't afford anymore as it is. *sigh*