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Diagnostic utility of the number of Wisc‐III subtests deviating from mean performance among students with learning disabilities
Author(s) -
Watkins Marley W.,
Worrell Frank C.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
psychology in the schools
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.738
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1520-6807
pISSN - 0033-3085
DOI - 10.1002/1520-6807(20002)37:4<311::aid-pits1>3.0.co;2-x
Subject(s) - psychology , normative , learning disability , developmental psychology , wechsler intelligence scale for children , intelligence quotient , receiver operating characteristic , wechsler adult intelligence scale , sample (material) , clinical psychology , statistics , cognition , psychiatry , philosophy , chemistry , mathematics , epistemology , chromatography
This paper examined the diagnostic utility of subtest variability, as represented by the number of subtests that deviate from examinees' mean IQ scores, for identifying students with a learning disability (LD). Participants consisted of the 2,200 students in the WISC‐III normative sample and 684 students ( Mdn grade = 5; M age = 10.8) identified as LD. The number of subtests deviating from examinees' Verbal, Performance, and Full Scale IQ by ±3 points for normative and exceptional samples were contrasted via Receiver Operating Curve (ROC) analyses. Results indicated that LD students did not differ from normative sample children at levels above chance. It was concluded that deviation of individual subtest scores from mean IQ scores has no diagnostic utility for hypothesizing about students with learning disabilities. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.