WISC IV scores lower than WISC III

[Anonymous]

I just read an article online by a Denver based gifted research group that WISC IV is considerably harder than WISC III so the scoring should ideally not even be similar. Kids who took III versus IV are scoring much lower.

I'm surprised that the eligibility score for the Cog At is 132. Is it the same then for WISC IV?

[Anonymous]

I don't think it's necessarily that the IV is "harder" than the III. I think the processing speed and working memory scores are lowering the FSIQ in some kids. However, the entire report with all subtest scores is provided, so any seasoned professional can see how a child performed and take that into account. That is why there is no "cutoff" for WISC IV scores. The committee just considers it another part of the package.

Cogat scores and IQ scores are unrelated.
A 132 on the cogat is in the 98th percentile, which is a standard place for gifted screening to start.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just read an article online by a Denver based gifted research group that WISC IV is considerably harder than WISC III so the scoring should ideally not even be similar. Kids who took III versus IV are scoring much lower.

I'm surprised that the eligibility score for the Cog At is 132. Is it the same then for WISC IV?

It's just because they weighted the working memory and processing components a bit more in wisc IV than the verbal and perceptual reasoning (i.e the cognitive reasoning components) compared to the weighting of these in the wisc III. for some children their motor skils and brain development gives them lower working memory and processing scores which are more sensitive to time-based performance than the cognitive reasoning components. For other children that isn't so and the effect wanes as you the children get older (i.e. 8 or older). So for the youngest kids (5,6,7 yrs) there might be more of a change from wisc III to wisc IV.

The cogat is not exactly the same as the wisc iv since it is an achievement test rather than an IQ/potential ability test. They are all normed with the same scoring scale - of 100 mean, 15 std dev and go up to about 150 or 160 so 132 gives you the same 97% cut-off in percentiles but the tests measure somewhat differing things.