In those who've taken the Wechsler, whose PSI lags their IQ?

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I've taken the Wechsler multiple times over the course of my life. One thing I notice that is recurrent is that my Processing Speed Index (PSI; which encompasses at least Digit-Symbol Coding and Symbol Search) often lags my General IQ by a large amount. At age 8 (WISC-III), my General IQ was 95 but my PSI was an 80. At age 30 (WAIS-IV), my General IQ was 113 but my PSI was a 94. Digit-Symbol Coding and Symbol Search were the only tests on which I scored below a 10 (I scored a 9 on both). There has always been that lag in PSI.

Has anyone else had these kinda lags, and if so what was your general life history? Did you ever develop psychosis? How was your childhood development? How are you doing now?

For me, I've generally done better in adulthood than childhood. I had a psychotic episode at age 14. I had lags in my childhood development and much dysfunction. For now, I'm doing better as I'm relocating (and taking charge of my life), but I had some recent problems which ended up putting me on Social Security Disability.

When I've taken the Digital-Symbol Coding test, I notice that I always check the key unless an digit immediately repeats. It seems that I cannot recall the digit-symbol pairings on my own, at least not as quickly as I can check the key (or maybe not as reliably). Nevertheless, I think this constant key checking is probably why I have lag on this test compared to most other measures of IQ. I think people normally start to build a memory for the pairings, which helps them speed up as they don't have to take that split-second check on the key, at least not as much.

I took the WAIS-IV a year and a half ago when I was diagnosed. My FSIQ was 111, VIQ was 134, and NVIQ was 94. My overall processing speed was in the 42nd percentile with a score of 97. I did okay on the coding test, in the 75th percentile with a raw score of 12, but on the symbol search, I was in the 16th percentile with a raw score of 7. To my knowledge, my nonverbal skills have always lagged behind my verbal skills: a test I took in first grade put my VIQ in the 91st percentile, and my NVIQ in the 68th.

I took an IQ test when I was very overwhelmed. I was just starting to learn how to play accordion, so my lessons were very mentally taxing. I would often take a nap right after my lessons and let my brain go back to normal. My full scale IQ was 87, my verbal IQ was 113, my visual IQ was 87 and my PSI was only 74. I'm sure my score would be way better if they retest me when I'm feeling good.

my processing speed and visual spatial memory are 4 standard deviations below my IQ. learning disabilities aren't unusual in autism.

I don't know all the lingo for testing, but that speed test is what shredded my husband's cumulative IQ.

There was another test he miserable on, and that effect the score too.

i took the wisc-iv and my processing speed was about 20 points lower than all my other scores

What's interesting is that when I did the vocational rehab test, I was able to do a lot of the speed tests pretty well. I wonder, though, if I've learned to compensate for my processing speed deficits in subjects like math and grammar and that explains the good performance. But pure processing speed nevertheless lags my other intellectual attributes.

So, I've "taken" the Digit-Symbol Substitution Test again. I've noticed these aspects of my behavior:

1.) If a digit immediately repeats, I look back at the prior part and write the correct symbol in.

2.) If a digit does not immediately repeat, then I notice that no matter how far I am into doing this task that the pairing, that is what symbol goes with the digit I am looking at, never comes to mind, so I always look up at the key to quickly get the pairing and write in the correct symbol.

3.) Sometimes, when looking at the key at a digit, my eyes kinda miss and go to the wrong part of the key, and I have to scan up or down the key to get to the correct digit.

4.) My writing speed seems normal. Writing takes very little time and I do it without error.

Have others practiced this and observed their behavior?

I also notice that I will start thinking of a topic of interest while performing this task. It takes me a second to notice that my thinking has got off track and to return to the task at hand. That perhaps also contributes to the slowness.

I took the weschler last year. I also have a big lag. My IQ is in the 75th percentile, my ability to receive stimuli and input is in the 87th percentile but my input and stimuli brain processing speed is in the 30th percentile. They explained to me that that is one of the defining markers that puts me on the Spectrum.

My brother showed this profile. Can't remember the exact numbers because he was tested a long time ago, but PSI was low-average, PRI and WMI were high-average and VCI was in the gifted range, I believe. I also recall that the little blurb about behavior during test sounded exactly like him - chatting about Greek mythology and humming to himself a lot.

He's not autistic, but I'm pretty sure he's BAP. He's a smart, talkative boy (well, man, now - it feels so weird that my baby brother is 18!), who is a visuospatial thinker and extremely talented at visual art. He has intense interests and can talk your ear off about them if he's not feeling shy. He gets good marks in school when he applies himself, but gets better marks in English than in math. He's a lot more socially skilled than I am - more low-average whereas I'm disabled socially - and his executive functions seem normal too, though it's hard to tell when he's had chronic depression for the past several years. He's well-coordinated and very muscular, but since his depression started he's gotten overweight and inactive.

When I was tested, my processing speed was borderline. Every sub area was borderline to low average, except verbal.

I am having my WAIS test tomorrow 17.12.15 , any tips ? Thanks

I actually give the Wechsler tests all the time (I've probably given over 1000 of them, counting both the WISC and the WAIS), and my processing speed is also slow, so I thought I'd write a reply to this post. First, of the four areas (now five on the new WISC) measured on the Wechsler tests, processing speed is the one that is most likely to be a lot different from the other three - it just doesn't correlate as closely. Second, if the processing speed score is really low in comparison to the other scores, the Full Scale IQ score isn't valid, and the score to use in its place is call the General Ability Index. (My personal opinion is that the Full Scale IQ is a bit lame - it's not like there's a number tattooed somewhere in your brain. It's just calculated from the other scores, so those other scores provide more specific information about what you're able to do. Furthermore, recent studies have established the common sense fact that IQ scores can and do change, both up and down. So your IQ score is not set in stone. So there's no reason anyone should be making a big deal of it, imho. I give the tests to look at the specific areas, and I really like the tests for that purpose, but not for the overall IQ score.) Third, the Wechsler Processing Speed index measures processing speed on two visual-type tasks that are normally unfamiliar to the test-taker. There are a lot of situations where someone will have a lower score on those two subtests and will do really well on subtests measuring things like reading, math and writing speed. So you may be faster at some things and slower at some things. (I had the luxury of giving myself a bunch of processing speed subtests from a lot of other tests, and my scores ranged from really low to high average.) So for most people, I think the thing to do is to pay attention to when you process more quickly and more slowly. Then try to come up with strategies to deal with the slower times. Like, sometimes in deep conversations (with one person) I'll ask for pauses to think about what they're saying because I just don't think that fast. Or when I was in school, I was able to scribble notes down but I didn't necessarily understand them, so I had to review them afterward and sometimes find ways to fill in gaps when what I scribbled didn't make sense (or I couldn't read it). Other people might not be able to do the "scribble notes down without understanding" thing, so maybe recording lectures, getting an in-class note-taker (if possible) sharing notes, or taking classes online so they can pause and rewind would work better. So I just think it's about finding what works for you.