Analysis of WISC-III, Stanford-Binet:IV, and Academic
Achievement Test Scores in Children with Autism

Mayes SD and Calhoun SL
Department of Psychiatry, The Pennsylvania State College of Medicine,
Hershey, PA

Abstract: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, Vol. 33, No. 3, June 2003

Findings

Research shows that most children with autism have normal motor and delayed speech milestones and that verbal IQ lags behind nonverbal IQ during the preschool years. By school age, the gap closes between mean verbal and nonverbal IQs. This happens earlier for children with high IQs (IQ over 80, mean age of 6 to 7 years) than for children with low IQs (IQ under 80, mean age of 9 to 10 years). This study was undertaken to understand the cognitive strengths and weaknesses of children with autism and the possible effect of age and IQ on Stanford-Binet:IV and WISC-III ability profiles and academic achievement. These two tests measure verbal and performance IQ of a child. A total of 53 children diagnosed with autism were given the Stanford-Binet (ages 3-7) and WISC-III (ages 6-15).
Nonverbal IQs were greater than verbal IQs for young children on the Stanford-Binet:IV, but the WISC-III verbal and nonverbal IQs were similar for older children. The younger children with autism scored high on visual matching tests of the Stanford-Binet; the older children performed well relative to IQ on tests of lexical knowledge (vocabulary, eg.) but not on language comprehension and social reasoning. Older children with IQs under 80 did best on visual-motor tests (such as assembling objects), whereas the children with IQs over 80 scored lower on arithmetic, digit spans, and written expression tests, suggesting they were weak on attention and writing.

Conclusions

The results of this study have implications for educational intervention with high-functioning school-age children with autism. Though high-functioning children with autism achieved their highest mean subtest scores on three of the four WISC-III Verbal Comprehension tests, their performance on Comprehension was lower, reflecting problems with language comprehension and social reasoning. Therefore, parents and teachers may need to address these problems by providing social skills training and adaptations to compensate for the language comprehension weakness. The problems with arithmetic and written expression can be helped by teaching keyboarding and word processing skills and encouraging the student to use a computer for written assignments. The authors point to the use of stimulant medication (often used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD) in treating the attention problems in children with autism. A combination of all of these interventions may be helpful in addressing the language comprehension, social reasoning, writing, and attention weaknesses that are common in high-functioning children with autism.