Intellectual Characteristics of School Labeled Learning Disabled Children

Abstract

Over 200 school labeled learning disabled children enrolled in 23 classrooms for the learning disabled were administered the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R). Results indicated that 37% of the children tested did not meet the single most generally agreed upon requisite for learning disabled classification, which is that of a normal level of intellectual functioning. However, regardless of the relative level of intellectual functioning, mean Performance IQ's were significantly greater than mean Verbal IQ's. Moreover, there was marked (and statistically reliable) heterogeneity among mean subtest scaled scores, although children with normal and subnormal intelligence exhibited similar patterns of WISC-R subtest scores.