The Utility Of WISC-R Subtest Scores In Discriminating Among Adequate And Underachieving Children

This investigation analyzed the discriminatory or diagnostic utility of using WISC-R subtest scores in differentiating between groups of statistically defined underachieving children and a group of children who were adequately achieving. The sample consisted of 206 children (134 boys, 72 girls) referred for psychological evaluations by their classroom teachers. The results suggested that while underachieving and adequately achieving groups of children can be separated by subtest differences on the WISC-R, the use of derived classification equations from group statistics in individual diagnosis leads to dramatic levels of misclassifications among underachieving students.