Comparison of various WISC-R summary scores for a psychiatric sample

Compared two sets of summary scores for the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R). The traditional scores used to summarize information about WISC-R performance (i.e., Verbal IQ (VIQ), Performance IQ (PIQ) and discrepancy between VIQ and PIQ) were compared to scores based on the three factors identified by Kaufman (1975) (i.e., Verbal Comprehension (VC), Perceptual Organization (PO) and Freedom from Distractibility (FD). Ss were 260 psychiatric outpatients who were administered the WISC-R during a 4-year period. The independent variables were sex and DSM II diagnosis. There were significant main effects for diagnosis for the VC and FD scales. There was a significant interaction for VIQ and nonsignificant results for the VIQ-PIQ discrepancy score. The groups did not differ in perceptual organization skills as assessed by PO and PIQ. Delinquents performed particularly poorly on the VC scale; hyperactive children had the highest VC score and relatively low scores on the FD factor; learning disabled children had low VC and FD scores. These findings suggest that the scores based on Kaufman's factors provided important clinical summary information that was not available from the traditional scores.