Psychological Assessment 3 Flashcards
If you have a client come in who in a young 6yr old girl who is:
- Hesitant to speak to teachers
- Hesitant to complete her work
- A lot of one word answers
across many contexts, as you’ve observed, what psychological test would you administer?
PPVT: Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test
- tests receptive vocabulary: how much you’re understanding
- the examinee listens to a word and selects one of four pictures that best describes the word’s meaning
if a client scores at the 5th percentile on the PPVT, what should be your next step?
We can thing there may be a language disorder, but we need to rule out an intellectual disability, so we perform the WISC
What do the WISC scores look like for someone that has an intellectual disability?
- the scores are more global across subtests
- in the bottom 2 percentile
What are the means and SD for the different scoring methods?
Index scores: 100, 15
T-scores: 50, 10
Scaled Scores: 10, 3
What does a percentile rank tell us?
what % of the norma group would score higher or lower
What does it mean to be at the 90th percentile?
90% of the sample is representing under the area of the curve on the left, everything else is 10%, 10% of people would score higher than this person
What does it mean to be at the 50th percentile?
half of kids would score higher and half would score lower
What does it mean to be at the 10th percentile?
10% of the sample is in the left tail and 90% is under the curve on the right
90% of people would score higher than this person
What does it mean to be at the 1st percentile?
1% of sample is in the left tail end and 99% is on the right
True of False: there is not a lot of diversity of scores in the tails of the normal curve
FALSE
- 1 in 100 (99th) vs.
- 1 in 1000 (99.9th) vs.
- 1 in 10 (90th)
these are all vastly different
Explain the characteristics of the WISC
- 6-16 yrs old
- No reading, writing and math in these tests, instead skills indirectly related to them are tested
- Verbal tests are delivered orally (ex: what is a telephone?)
- Once u get 3 wrong in a row you stop
- Efficient: not exhaustive, short tests that are reliable
- FSIQ: Can combine a bunch of subsets into larger scores that try to get at general cognitive ability
QAI: includes just the first 3 sections of the test
Explain the characteristics of the WAIS
- 16-90 yrs old
- 4 factor model, many subtest are the same
- Tasks are hard enough to reach an adult level
- Very similar concepts to WISC
Explain the characteristics of the WIAT
- Reflects things you’ve learned in an academic setting
- Gets at reading, writing and math - each divided into sub components
- Just looking at report cards isn’t sufficient, the WIAT is standardized and can be compared to a norm group
- Screening for academic performance: a support teacher may be trained to administer it and if scores are low they will refer to a psychologist
Psychometrist:
delivers psychological test under supervision of psychologist
what defines a learning disability? use dyslexia as an example:
you have age expected cognitive abilities and some difficulty in an academic achievement topic
Dyslexia:
- Average cognitive abilities (WISC)
- Lower percentile rank scores on the WIAT in reading and writing (bottom 5% in reading)
Can people will a learning disability improve/get over the disability?
- There is evidence that with extensive training in reading, a sub-group of kids will catch up and some won’t
- Reading is a technology, was created, is relatively new, must be taught how to read
Is looking at WISC and WIAT scores enough to know if someone had a learning disability?
No, we would have to look at academic history (report cards) and it would have to impact the daily functioning of the client
What would an intellectual disability look like on the WISC and WIAT?
- Would expect to see low scores across the board for both cognitive and academic scores
- These tests don’t tell you anything about the person such as if they are a good or bad student/person
Would expect scores to be globally lower
What would we additionally need to look at (besides WISC and WIAT) to diagnose an intellectual diability?
Scores of adaptive functioning would be necessary to diagnose (can go to the bathroom, can take a shower, can take the bus to the store)
Can WAIS scores be used to support the case for diagnosing dementia? what kind of psychologist would perform the test?
Yes, a neuropsychologist would perform the test but focus on the neurological conditions measured
if we have scores of before and after diagnosis of a man who used to be a lawyer, very low scored would be alarming and a good indication. even low average scores would be alarming since he was in a highly verbal and problem solving career
Vocabulary (Verbal) across ages 16-90:
starts lower, reaches a peak between 45-64, and then soft decline
- We continue to improve in some areas of verbal comprehension throughout our lifespan, we are always learning new words (why our parents/grandparents are better in scrabble)
on a normal distribution, 16 yr old scores compared to 85yr old norm group:
- both ages would be in the average range
Block Design (perceptual reasoning) across ages 16-90:
- Higher score in younger groups
- We expect a natural decline in this ability over development
- So if you’re testing the 85 year old, his score would naturally be lower on this task
- If he was at the 50th percentile at 55yrs his score would be 34 but if he’s at the 50th percentile at 85yrs his score is 21,
- The percentiles mean the same thing but comparing to age (ability changes over our lives)
if someone was lower than the average score, it’s not what we would expect based on development
on a normal distribution, 16 yr old scores compared to 85yr old norm group:
- 16 yr old scores would be in the 99th percentile, much higher than the 85 average
Digit Span (working memory) across ages 16-90:
declines over ages but not intensely, not uncommon to experience decline in later years
on a normal distribution, 16 yr old scores compared to 85yr old norm group:
- 16 yr old average would be 1SD higher from 85 average
Coding (processing speed) across ages 16-90:
declines over ages with a larger drop beginning at 55-64
on a normal distribution, 16 yr old scores compared to 85yr old norm group:
- Average 16 yr olds score would be at the 99th percentile compared to 85 yr old norm group
