Is there a unique profile for gifted children on the Woodcock-Johnson test? And does a gifted child obtain high scores in every cognitive ability?

 

Most of the literature on the identification of gifted children supports the use of multiple criteria, including intelligence tests, academic achievement, school performance, and reports from teachers and parents.

Rizza, McIntosh and McCunn (2001) examined whether gifted students have a different and specific profile of CHC abilities on the Woodcock-Johnson III test compared with non-gifted students. The sample included 51 gifted and 51 non-gifted students between the ages of 5 and 18. The students were drawn from the standardization sample of the Woodcock-Johnson test. Gifted students were identified on the basis of a general intelligence score of 125 or higher. Each gifted student was matched with a non-gifted student (with an intelligence score of 124 or lower) of the same sex, age, ethnic background, and level of paternal education. Each group included 23 girls and 28 boys. Eighty percent of the children were White and 20% were of Asian descent. The fathers of 36 of the children had a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Francis Galton - a truely gifted individual

The findings were as follows:

The gifted and non-gifted students showed similar patterns of relatively high and low scores across the different CHC abilities measured by the Woodcock-Johnson test (see Tables 1 and 2). In other words, gifted and non-gifted students tended to obtain relatively high and relatively low scores in the same cognitive abilities. In addition, the profiles of the gifted students were not more “variable” than those of the non-gifted students, although they may appear so visually.

On average, the gifted students obtained higher scores than the non-gifted students on all of the CHC abilities. However, a closer look at the gifted students’ data in Table 1 reveals several interesting points.

Although the gifted students performed well on all of the cognitive abilities, and although there were no statistically significant differences between their mean scores on the different cognitive abilities, their mean scores were not completely “flat.” For example, the gifted students’ mean processing-speed score was 115, whereas their mean fluid-ability score was 122. Because the scores presented in Table 1 are group means, they “flatten out” the variability found in the individual profile of each child. All of this leads to the conclusion that a gifted child should not necessarily be expected to obtain uniform scores, or scores two standard deviations above the mean, on every cognitive ability.

There was also a very wide range of scores among the gifted children within each ability. If we look at visual processing, for example, the gifted children’s scores ranged from 74 to 144. Thus, a gifted child may obtain a low score in one or more cognitive abilities.

Table 1: Mean scores, standard deviations, and score ranges of the gifted group
(n = 51) on the WJ III COG (Woodcock-Johnson test)

Ability/Factor	Mean	Standard Deviation	Range
General intellectual ability (based on 14 tests)	129.37	4.58	125–143
Short-term memory	122.53	11.55	100–159
Processing speed	115.39	12.12	95–142
Visual processing	117.06	14.24	74–144
Auditory processing	116.08	12.94	92–154
Long-term storage and retrieval	120.9	8.93	103–148
Fluid ability	122.12	10.76	80–148
Crystallized knowledge	120.31	7.71	94–135

Of course, a gifted child may also have a learning disability. Such a child may have one or two cognitive abilities that are below average — not merely low relative to the child’s own abilities — meaning that the child obtains a score below 85 in that ability. However, the presence of a low cognitive ability in a gifted child is not, by itself, sufficient to determine that the child has a learning disability. The mere existence of a low ability in a gifted child can be a normal finding and does not in itself indicate any impairment. To diagnose a learning disability, the child must also show reduced performance in one of the areas of academic achievement (reading, reading comprehension, writing, written expression, basic arithmetic, or mathematical reasoning); the low cognitive ability must account for the specific weakness found in the relevant achievement area; and exclusionary factors must not provide a better explanation for the weakness in academic achievement.

Looking at the score ranges of the non-gifted children (Table 2) also yields an interesting insight: some non-gifted students obtained scores above 125 on certain CHC abilities. This finding led the researchers to recommend considering not only the level of general intellectual ability as a criterion for giftedness, but also scores on the broad cognitive abilities.

Table 2: Mean scores, standard deviations, and score ranges of the non-gifted group
(n = 51) on the WJ III COG (Woodcock-Johnson test)

Ability/Factor	Mean	Standard Deviation	Range
General intellectual ability (based on 14 tests)	104.41	11.05	74–123
Short-term memory	102.65	14.38	67–138
Processing speed	99.51	11.24	70–123
Visual processing	100.86	10.35	84–130
Auditory processing	100.63	13.24	74–131
Long-term storage and retrieval	102.78	11.44	74–139
Fluid ability	104.47	13.14	67–124
Crystallized knowledge	104.02	11.82	60–125

 

 

Rizza, M. G., McIntosh, D. E., & McCunn, A. (2001). Profile analysis of the Woodcock‐Johnson III tests of cognitive abilities with gifted students. Psychology in the Schools, 38(5), 447–455.
http://www.iapsych.com/wj3ewok/LinkedDocuments/Rizza2001.pdf