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 th e contribution of WISC profile analysis to child psychiatric: diagnosi s. Method: The fit of various factor models was tested and differences between various clinical groups regarding three WISC patterns were st udied, 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 psych iatric clinic. Results: The traditional factor models were replicated in this study. However, most of the variance in the factors could be e xplained by an underlying factor, ''general intelligence,'' suggesting that WISC factors measure specific cognitive abilities only to a limi ted degree. Another important finding is that the various DSM-III-R an d Child Behavior Checklist diagnoses could not be distinguished on the basis of WISC profiles. Conclusion: The data demonstrate that the rel ationship between WISC factors and specific cognitive abilities and ne uropsychological functions needs further clarification in order to imp rove the validity of the traditional use of WISC profiles as a source of diagnostic information.