Intellectual competence of children who are beginning inpatient and day psychiatric treatment

Longitudinal IQ Trends in Children Diagnosed with Emotional Disturbance: An Analysis of Historical Data

The overwhelming majority of the research on the historical impact of IQ in special education has focused on children with cognitive disorders. Far less is known about its role for students with emotional concerns, including Emotional Disturbance (ED). To address this gap, the current study examined IQ trends in ED children who were repeatedly tested on various combinations of the WISC, WISC-R, and WISC-III using a geographically diverse, longitudinal database of special education evaluation records. Findings on test/re-test data revealed that ED children experienced IQ trends that were consistent with previous research on the Flynn effect in the general population. Unlike findings associated with test/re-test data for children diagnosed with cognitive disorders, however, ED re-diagnoses were unaffected by these trends. Specifically, ED children’s declining IQ scores when retested on newer norms did not result in changes in their ED diagnosis. The implications of this unexpected finding are discussed within the broader context of intelligence testing and special education policies.

Intra-individual subtest variability on the Dutch Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children-Revised (WISC-R(NL)) for children with learning disabilities, psychiatric disorders, and epilepsy

It is common practice to look at disparities among subtest scores ("scatter") on an intelligence test to establish if a score is deviant. However, it remains unclear whether subtest scatter reflects primarily normal variation within individuals or is clinically meaningful. The present study explored this issue based on data from 467 children with developmental disabilities tested on the Dutch WISC-R(NL). Of these children, 132 had learning disabilities, 178 had psychiatric disorders, and 157 had epilepsy. Subtest scatter was defined as scaled-score range (highest minus lowest scaled score). When contrasted with "normal scatter," the overall sample revealed higher ranges on the Performance Scale and Full Scale, although effect sizes were small. Analysis of the data for the three separate clinical samples revealed unusual scatter only for the sample of children with psychiatric disorders. When comparing the clinical samples, scaled-score range was larger for the sample of children with psychiatric disorders than for those with epilepsy. Two distinct subsamples revealed elevated ranges with moderate effect sizes: children with autistic spectrum disorders and children with left hemisphere seizures. These results suggest that elevated subtest scaled-score range might characterize specific clinical samples rather than denoting an overall sign of pathology.

Eine Untersuchung zur Spezifität kognitiver Leistungen depressiver Kinder und Jugendlicher im HAWIK-III

Zusammenfassung. Theoretischer Hintergrund: Auffälligkeiten im Leistungsverhalten gehören zu den zentralen Symptomen depressiver Kinder und Jugendlicher. Im HAWIK-III konnte eine spezifische, differentialdiagnostisch nutzbare Abbildung solcher Defizite noch nicht durchgängig nachgewiesen werden. Fragestellung: Lassen sich spezifische kognitive Defizite bei depressiven Kindern nachweisen? Methode: Das Leistungsprofil von 33 monopolar depressiven Kindern und Jugendlichen ohne Komorbidität (9-16 J., 22 w) wird mit einer Kontrollgruppe hyperkinetischer Patienten (n = 33; 7-15 J., 10 w) hinsichtlich störungsspezifischer Abweichungen von der Normstichprobe untersucht. Ergebnisse: Die depressiven Patienten weisen weder im Vergleich zur Normstichprobe noch zur Kontrollgruppe die erwarteten Defizite auf. Einzig im Allgemeinwissen (t(33) = -2.43, p = .021; d = -0.41) und Rechnerischen Denken (t(33) = -1.51, p = .141; d = -0.25) treten begrenzt Einbußen zu Tage. Schlussfolgerung: Die Leistungsdefizite der depressiven Patienten in schulähnlichen Aufgaben werden in Zusammenhang mit misserfolgsorientiertem und gehemmtem Verhalten verstanden. Der Stellenwert psychometrischer Leistungsdiagnostik in der klinischen Diagnostik von Depressionen wird diskutiert.

WISC profiles in child psychiatric diagnosis: sense or nonsense?

OBJECTIVE

WISC factor structure, the specificity of WISC factors, and diagnostic correlates of WISC profiles were studied to investigate the contribution of WISC profile analysis to child psychiatric diagnosis.

METHOD

The fit of various factor models was tested and differences between various clinical groups regarding three WISC patterns were studied, using the WISC-RN (the Dutch version of the WISC-R) scores of a group of 465 Dutch children (mean age 11.2 years) referred to a psychiatric clinic.

RESULTS

The traditional factor models were replicated in this study. However, most of the variance in the factors could be explained by an underlying factor, "general intelligence," suggesting that WISC factors measure specific cognitive abilities only to a limited degree. Another important finding is that the various DSM-III-R and Child Behavior Checklist diagnoses could not be distinguished on the basis of WISC profiles.

CONCLUSION

The data demonstrate that the relationship between WISC factors and specific cognitive abilities and neuropsychological functions needs further clarification in order to improve the validity of the traditional use of WISC profiles as a source of diagnostic information.

The school behaviors of children in three psychiatric treatment settings: an outpatient clinic, a day hospital, and an inpatient hospital

Compares teachers' ratings of the school behaviors of children entering an outpatient clinic, a day psychiatric program, and an inpatient psychiatric hospital. Many of the ratings did not discriminate among the three groups. Children starting outpatient versus day treatment were rated as higher in aggression, anxiety, and hostile withdrawal, and children beginning outpatient and day treatment versus inpatient treatment, were reported as more skilled socially.