Abstract
Introduction
This edited book provides readers who use the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–fifth edition (WISC-V) in their clinical assessment practice with a comprehensive overview of the instrument, detailed descriptions of its subtests, administration rules and tips, and guidance in meaningful interpretation of results. This book is intended for use by clinicians and graduate students who assess cognitive abilities as part of psychological evaluations for children and adolescents. As noted by Kaufman (2013), “intelligent testing demands that individually administered tests need to be personalized to each child or adult being assessed” (p. 231). Seemingly, with that in mind, this book’s main purposes are (a) to consolidate for the reader all the information about the newest Wechsler instrument, drawing from the research, development, and practice literature; (b) to guide the reader into the digital age of intelligence testing by introducing the Q-interactive system; (c) to serve as a resource for interpreting results and linking them to interventions; and (d) to guide clinicians through the process of creating a personalized assessment approach using the WISC-V.
Content and Structure
The central intent of this book is to provide readers with a comprehensive companion resource for the WISC-V. To that end, this book is divided into four parts, each of which addresses considerations that are helpful to users of the WISC-V. The first part, Applied Considerations, comprises three chapters that describe practical issues related to the structure, administration, scoring, and interpretation of the WISC-V. The second part, Theoretical Considerations, includes three chapters that focus on issues related to the theoretical basis for the WISC-V, considerations related to the use of the WISC-V with diverse populations, and clinical implications of the Flynn Effect in relation to WISC-V administration. The third part of the book, Clinical Considerations, comprises four chapters that describe the use of the WISC-V for specific diagnostic purposes and with special groups. Finally, the fourth part of this book, Current and Future Directions, includes a discussion of the WISC-V digital platform, Q-interactive, and issues related to using the WISC-V within the context of a personalized assessment approach.
Chapter 1 situates the WISC-V within the historical context of the Wechsler scales’ development since their original inception. That is, it outlines a brief history of the Wechsler model and its iterations over time. Then, the chapter describes the changes to the factor structure of the Wechsler scales over the past 75 years. The majority of the first chapter is dedicated to a detailed description of the WISC-V indexes and subtests, including ancillary and complementary indexes and subtests.
Chapter 2 serves as a supplement to the WISC-V Administration and Scoring Manual. It provides readers with general administration guidelines as well as detailed instructions for administering and scoring each subtest. Tables that highlight essential information for each subtest are placed throughout the chapter for easy reference. A notable feature of this chapter is that it describes the most common errors made in administering and scoring the WISC-V. This chapter includes a handy appendix of frequently asked questions (FAQ), and another that describes specifically how the WISC-V differs from its predecessor, the WISC-IV.
Chapter 3 presents information related to the interpretation of WISC-V scores, particularly when discrepancies among index scores indicate that the full scale score (FSIQ) may not be meaningful. The chapter discusses the value of the FSIQ within the context of g, the general intelligence factor, from a theoretical and practical stance. Next, the authors discuss the importance of interpreting the component abilities, particularly when large discrepancies exist between them. In addition, they provide a simple way to describe the function of each primary ability to non-experts by creating a “role” to represent each index score. As an example, they describe the Verbal Comprehension Index (VCI) as a “librarian” who is in charge of all the information that has been acquired in a person’s lifetime. The librarian knows what information to access to solve a given problem and where the information is stored. Finally, this chapter provides a section of intervention suggestions for each index.
Chapter 4 delves into an advanced discussion of the foundations of the WISC-V index scores. The chapter includes an explanation of the confirmatory factor analysis and its resultant five-factor solution followed by detailed information about each factor. The discussion of each factor begins with a description of what it is and then how scores on the index, and on each subtest that contributes to the index score, may manifest themselves in a child’s school performance. Finally, Chapter 4 describes the importance of understanding the interdependence that is inherent in each of the cognitive abilities measured by the WISC-V.
Chapter 5 places intelligence within the context of the many influences that can affect it. Using what the authors describe as contextual interpretation, a discussion of demographic, environmental, and cultural variables is provided. In addition, there is a discussion of the important influence of the caregiver’s psychology and the role of cognitive stimulation in cognitive development. This chapter also has a lengthy section on bias issues in assessment as well as a discussion of racial and ethnic group disparities in a number of areas (e.g., income, education, physical, and mental health) that have been documented in the literature. Finally, the chapter includes information about patterns that have been noted in WISC-V scores across culturally and linguistically diverse groups.
Chapter 6 presents information on the Flynn effect, including historical information about its discovery and documentation, and details about its variability across domains of cognitive ability and across gender and ability level. The chapter continues with a discussion of the causes of the Flynn effect and its implications for practitioners. Finally, Chapter 6 includes a discussion of research that examined the trends of WISC scores across versions, including the WISC-V. Data are presented and explained so that the reader understands the potential influence of the Flynn effect on WISC-V scores.
Chapter 7 describes the use of the WISC-V with students who are Hispanic. It includes information about the normative samples that were used in test development as well as a discussion of possible interpretations of differences between students from Hispanic and non-Hispanic backgrounds. This chapter also includes a discussion of WISC-V base rates for test takers who are Spanish speaking, and describes how they should be used in practice. Furthermore, the chapter presents the percentile norms in a convenient table for readers. Chapter 7 wraps up with information about testing students who are Spanish speaking using the WISC-IV Spanish (Wechsler, 2005).
Chapter 8 focuses on the role of intelligence testing in the assessment of learning disabilities. The chapter reviews the definition of learning disability as formulated through research and legislation (i.e., Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act, 2004). Then, it describes the link between intelligence testing and the assessment and diagnosis of learning disability. The next section extends the discussion of learning disabilities beyond the use of a single score to represent intelligence and into an examination of learning disabilities within the context of Cattell–Horn–Carroll (CHC) theory (McGrew & Flanagan, 1998). The chapter provides a series of tables related to the mapping of CHC broad abilities onto academic areas, and onto specific subtests of both the WISC-V and the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test–Third edition (WIAT-III; Pearson, 2009). Next, Chapter 8 provides guidance for using the WISC-V as a tool for identifying learning disabilities.
Chapter 9 presents a history of learning disabilities with a focus on dyslexia. It provides an overview of neurobiological evidence of dyslexia and goes on to describe the challenges of defining and measuring dyslexia in a scientific way. Finally, this chapter provides suggestions for WISC-V and WIAT-III subtests for the diagnosis of dyslexia in children, adolescents, and young adults.
Chapter 10 covers information related to conducting assessments in special (e.g., clinical) populations. It begins by addressing recent changes in the areas of assessment and diagnosis of cognitive and mental health disorders. The chapter provides an overview of how the diagnostic criteria for disorders in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013) have changed. Then, it describes how the WISC-V can be used in conjunction with the DSM as an approach to assessment of neurocognitive profiles, particularly when phenotypes may overlap with one another. Chapter 10 also describes the assessment of cognitive profiles that fall into clinical groups such as intellectual disability, giftedness, and autism. Useful tables of WISC-V subtest and composite data for these groups, along with matched control comparisons, are then provided.
Chapter 11 provides an introduction to the Q-interactive platform that was designed to help clinicians administer assessment measures, including the WISC-V. The chapter outlines the major goals and benefits of using a digital platform in intelligence testing. Next, an overview of the main components of Q-interactive, Central and Assess, is provided. This section is followed by information on the development of Q-interactive and equivalence studies that have been conducted with the paper version of the WISC-V. The chapter concludes with a section on future directions for cognitive assessment using technology.
Chapter 12 brings the book to a close by framing the WISC-V within the context of a personalized assessment approach. It begins with a discussion of the importance of developing a pre-assessment plan that is tailored to the student by drawing from referral concerns and background information. Then, it describes the importance of examining the student’s symptom picture and having sound clinical knowledge about the range of disorders that occur in children along with their epidemiology. From there, the chapter provides suggestions for building a personalized assessment based on the clinician’s hypotheses. The authors provide suggestions for assessment tools that might be used to evaluate multiple domains of functioning, including language, attention, working memory, and more. Finally, the chapter describes how to make on-the-fly adjustments to a personalized assessment.
Critique
This book serves well as a companion guide to the WISC-V, which has undergone notable revisions and has expanded diagnostic capabilities beyond those of earlier versions. Broadly stated, the central goal of this book was to provide readers with information about the WISC-V that was gleaned from both empirical research and from a clinical practice perspective using a balanced scientist-practitioner framework. Overall, this book achieves its goal. Aimed at a wide audience that includes graduate students, clinicians, and school-based practitioners, the book is well written and accessible, although perhaps recommended for more advanced graduate students and experienced practitioners due to the complexity of some of the theoretical content.
Although no other books on the WISC-V were available yet for comparison, this book was compared with similar books written on the WISC-IV. Some of the shared features included details related to administration rules, subtest descriptions, and information about using the Wechsler scales in special populations. Also, comparable books described important cultural and linguistic factors related to cognitive assessment. There were, however, some notable features in this book that may give it an advantage over other similar ones. Specifically, this book offers expansive, highly practical information regarding the interpretation of cognitive profiles when index scores vary a great deal. As just one example, Chapter 3 describes what a profile with a low VCI score might “look like” in the classroom and then it goes on to list possible accommodations for that learner. This list is comprehensive, providing possible instructional accommodations, environmental accommodations, and classroom assessment strategies for teachers to consider. This information is a clear asset to practitioners.
This book also provides considerable information related to the diagnosis of learning disorders, which is especially helpful for school psychologists who are increasingly asked questions by parents and teachers about dyslexia. Furthermore, this book provides a nice analogy for use when describing test results across the five broad abilities assessed with the WISC-V. Overall, this book brings attention to issues that will appeal to a range of users who want an enhanced understanding of the theoretical structure of the WISC-V as well as practical tips for administration, scoring, and interpreting test results within a personalized assessment approach.
In sum, this book would be a valuable addition to a practitioner’s library. Perhaps the most exciting contribution of the book from a user’s perspective is the link between assessment results and interventions that directly target deficits in a student’s cognitive profile. Given the substantial increase in the amount of data provided by the WISC-V, this book becomes an important resource that will certainly help practitioners use these data to make meaningful interpretations, and to recommend targeted interventions and accommodations.