The WISC-III Profile in Greek Children with Learning Disabilities: Different Language, Similar Difficulties

Abstract

This study investigates the WISC-III profile in Greek children with learning disabilities (LD). The sample consisted of 180 children diagnosed with learning disability (136 boys, 44 girls) aged 6.11 to 14.4 years. The Mean Full-scale IQ is 96.08, Mean Verbal IQ is 96.38, and Mean Performance IQ is 96.61. On individual subtests, the lowest mean scores are for Digit Span and Arithmetic whereas the highest are for Similarities and Picture Completion. Forty eight percent of our sample has a higher Verbal Intelligence, while 46.7% has a higher Performance Intelligence. These results indicate that the WISC-III profile in Greek-speaking children with LD is similar to that shown by an English-speaking sample with respect to the most difficult subtests. This finding implies that despite linguistic differences between the Greek and English languages, deficits in short term memory and working memory are responsible for the emergence of learning disabilities in both languages.

WISC‐III Cognitive Profiles in Children with Developmental Dyslexia: Specific Cognitive Disability and Diagnostic Utility

“…Table shows the percentage of the discrepancies between VIQ and PIQ, compared with the findings of Daley and Nagle () and Rotsika et al . (). Thirty‐eight percent of normal readers and 44.9% of children with DD had a difference ≥11 points.…”

“…Nonsignificant differences were found in the Verbal–Performance discrepancy, and the mean difference was smaller than for normal readers. This finding was also reported by other studies with LD (Pereira & Simões, ) and children with DD (Rotsika et al ., ) and demonstrated the minimal practical value of the VIQ‐PIQ discrepancy for differential diagnosis (Kaufman, ). The analyses of IQ mean scores between groups revealed that dyslexics had significantly lower scores in FSIQ and VIQ, which is consistent with a large number of studies (e.g.…”

“…The discrepancy between Verbal IQ (VIQ) and Performance IQ (PIQ) in LD samples has been analysed in a large number of studies (e.g. Daley & Nagle, ; Riccio & Hynd, ; Rotsika et al ., ; Rourke, ; Slate, ). Although some studies have suggested that a significant VIQ‐PIQ difference may be an important indicator of LD (Riccio & Hynd, ; Rourke, ), others did not find VIQ‐PIQ differences to be useful in differentiating children with LDs from other groups of children (Humphries & Bone, ; Kavale & Forness, ).…”

“…In a sample of children with LDs, the prevalence of the ACID profile was 4.7% (Ward et al ., ). In a Greek dyslexic sample, the prevalence was 6.7%, whereas the prevalence of the SCAD profile was 2.4% (Rotsika et al ., ). Watkins, Kush, and Glutting () found sensitivities of 4% in the full profile (with a specificity of 99%) and 19% in the partial profile (with a specificity of 94%) in the dyslexic group, whereas the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis resulted in an area‐under‐the‐curve (AUC) value of .68.…”

“…IQ, reading, spelling, phonological processing) and others. A large body of studies has been conducted on English‐speaking samples, but it is also particularly important to analyse the presence of such profiles in samples with native languages other than English (some exceptions: Clercq‐Quaegebeur et al ., ; Filippatou & Livaniou, ; Rotsika et al ., ). For example, it is known that phonological processing, reading fluency and accuracy and the prevalence of DD subtypes are influenced by specific linguistic characteristics (Boets et al ., ; Jiménez, Rodríguez, & Ramírez, ; Sprenger‐Charolles, Colé, Lacert, & Serniclaes, ).…”