Inteligência: efeito do tipo de escola e implicaçõesna normatização das escalas wechsler para crianças

The individual’s intellectual ability is related to several factors, including socioeconomic status. The presente study aimed to compare the performance of children in public and private schools on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children – 3rd edition (WISC-III) in 296 children between 6 and 9 years old. The results showed superior performance of private school students in specifi c subtests and general indexes, with statistically signifi cant differences between age groups. A larger effect on verbal subtests was checked, since these are associated with formal learning experiences. Overall differences remained over the age groups, except for the Picture Completion Coding and Search Symbols subtests. These latter differences were observed only at 6 and 7 years old. This study points to the importance of the differences between types of schools on performance in cognitive tasks, which should be considered in the standardization of instruments such as the Wechsler Intelligence Scales