Demographic Distribution of Third Factor Deficits in the Standardization Sample of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised

Abstract

Clampit and Silver (in press) reported that girls from the West appeared twice as often as nonwestern girls in a subset of children with Third Factor deficits, drawn from the standardization sample of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R). We sought to replicate these findings for the entire WISC-R standardization sample, using the discrepancy between deviation quotients as a measure of Third Factor deficits. Regression analysis showed that, even after controlling for other demographic factors, children in the western region had significantly larger Third Factor discrepancies than their cohort population elsewhere. Furthermore, most of this difference was accounted for by unusually large discrepancies among girls from the West. In addition to these regional differences, sex, occupational class, and urban/rural differences were significant in explaining discrepancies.

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