What is typical Aspie WAIS III difference range for VIQ-PIQ?

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Is there an 'Aspie range' of difference between the VIQ and the PIQ? In other words where the significance is perhaps more than the rest of the population.

When I took the WAISIII, the psychologist stated that there was a significant difference between my verbal comprehension skills and my non verbal reasoning abilities, but also stated:

Although if that's true, at the age I took the test I'd had many years of learning social skills through trial and (much) error (if that is what the test correlates with).

I scored 122 on VIQ and 107 on PIQ (difference of 15).

Last edited by whirlingmind on 16 Dec 2012, 11:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

No, a VIQ-PIQ discrepancy is not diagnostic of AS because it is related to a wide range of conditions.

About a third of high functioning autism spectrum people have VIQ 10 or more points above PIQ, a third have the opposite profile, and a third have both within 10 points of each other. (In lower functioning autism PIQ>VIQ is the most common.) In contrast, the vast majority of the population has VIQ and PIQ within 10 points of each other.

However, VIQ-PIQ discrepancies, in either direction, are also commonly seen in specific learning disabilities, brain injuries, schizophrenia (especially VIQ > PIQ), giftedness and many other conditions, so it's not specific to autism/AS.

Thanks for explaining Ettina, I didn't believe it was diagnostic, just whether it was something that was usual to Aspies (and others as necessary). So basically a difference of 10 plus points between the two areas indicates something other than the norm.

Judging by what you say, if it's true that the vast majority of the population has VIQ and PIQ within 10 points of each other, then what the psychologist told me (...the magnitude of this difference is not unusual in adults her age.) was untrue

I'd be grateful if you could point me to any research links where the 10 point difference is discussed.

You're very close to the threshold but not quite there is what they're saying. Can't remember what the exact differences are for the indexes but it's in the 20-25 point range. I want to say 22. That's basically the difference they expect to occur in only 15% of the population. Basically at that point the test is invalid as far as FSIQ. I had a spread of over 50 points and I know other people here have had even larger differences. There really is no autistic number it's just saying something is off because this does not happen in most of the population. But a 50 point spread can mean a lot of different things. For example someone can score 50 points lower one one index or a person can score 50 points higher on one index. Both 50 point difference but completely different meaning. The way psychologists analyze IQ tests is actually very complicated.

OK. Do you know if other elements of the WAIS can 'adjust' your score. I mean swing it more one way and unbalance it or something, or over or under compensate in an area?

For instance, I scored VCI 124 which is apparently superior, but I only scored average in the POI (109). My processing speed range was also superior (PSI 120). Would any of this have affected the VIQ-PIQ score?

I've also always been rubbish at maths, I scored my lowest on the Arithmetic subtest, apparently I scored my highest score on the digit span subtest.

I believe VIQ is VCI and WMI combined, while PIQ is POI and PSI combined. But both VCI and POI exert a greater influence because they include more subtests.

They're also looking at subtest scatter within an index. For example a low score on coding and a high score on symbol search. Or in your case the low score in arithmetic and high score digit span. , which are both parts of the working memory index. All of these things are inter-related and they can pin point specific areas of strengths and weaknesses but they don't make a diagnosis based on IQ tests. These things are diagnostic tools that provide clues, not definitive answers.