Surveys reveal that many school psychologists continue to employ cognitive profile analysis despite the long-standing history of negative research results from this class of practice. This begets the question: why do questionable assessment practices persist in school psychology? To provide insight on this dilemma, this article presents the…

Within the Canadian context, the two major learning disability classification systems are arguably the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" and the Learning Disabilities Association (LDAC) of Canada's "Official Definition of Learning Disabilities." Several of the more…

The history of cognitive assessment in Brazil is described through evolutionary movements or waves, when tests were just imported and translated from other countries, criticized, and later evaluated in laboratories on test construction founded at private and state universities. The presence of high standards for test use place Brazil at the…

This article provides guidelines for an entry-level course that prepares psychology students and practitioners to acquire entry-level skills, abilities, knowledge, and attitudes important to the individual assessment of intellectual abilities of children and youth. The article reviews prominent international, regional, and national policies,…

A multiple-baseline across-students design was used to evaluate the effects of a computer-based flashcard reading (CFR) intervention, developed using Microsoft PowerPoint software, on students' ability to read health-related words within 3 seconds. The students were three adults with intellectual disabilities enrolled in a postsecondary college…

Oral language skills are important to consider in school psychology practice, as they are directly tied to many areas of academic functioning. For example, research has demonstrated that oral language skills in early elementary school predict reading comprehension in later grades (Kendeou, van den Broek, White, & Lynch, 2009). With a…

The Woodcock-Johnson-Fourth edition (WJ IV; Schrank, McGrew, & Mather, 2014a) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fifth edition (WISC-V; Wechsler, 2014) are two of the major tests of cognitive abilities used in school psychology. The complete WJ IV battery includes the Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Cognitive Abilities (Schrank,…

Research has demonstrated that many children have learning problems related to deficits in specific cognitive processes that are not adequately represented by a single IQ score. The administration of cognitive measures that include narrow abilities is useful in understanding specific learning problems and developing effective interventions.…

Test examiners used the Test Observation Form (McConaughy & Achenbach, 2004) to rate test session behavior of 177 6- to 11-year-old children during administration of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV) and Wechsler Individual Achievement Tests-Second Edition (WIAT-II). Participants were assigned to four groups…

This study contributes to ongoing research in the field of school psychology by examining some of the effects of using the Full Scale Intelligence Quotient (FSIQ) to classify students aged 6-16 years according to their results on an individual measure of intelligence, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Third Edition (WISC-III, 1991).…

The field of intelligence testing has been revolutionized by Alan S. Kaufman. He developed the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) with David Wechsler, and his best-selling book, Intelligent Testing with the WISC-R, introduced the phrase "intelligent testing." Kaufman, with his wife, Nadeen, then created his own…

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III) and the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale-Fourth Edition (SB-IV), were administered to 20 gifted children and 20 non-gifted children to examine the extent of the difference in IQ scores obtained on the two tests. Results show that the SB-IV Composite Score was significantly…

Presents a normative typology for classifying the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III) factor index profiles according to profile shape. Current analyses indicate that overall profile level accounted for a majority of the variance in WISC-III index scores, but a considerable proportion of the variance was because of…

Argues that the apparent lack of empirical support for the practice of profile analysis has stemmed in part from the use of statistical techniques that have neglected to explore the perspective of the clinician. Explores Configural Frequency Analysis, a statistical technique focusing on the relationships among groups of participants as the unit of…

Uses both exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) to examine the factor structure of the WISC-III among White and Black students from the WISC-III standardization sample and a sample of 348 Black students referred for psychological evaluation. Results of the EFA provided evidence of a large first principal factor as well as the…