Visual Spatial and Verbal IQ Gap
So THAT'S what performance IQ is! I was wondering what the heck my neuropsych meant when he said there was a gap in my verbal and performance IQs.
Well now it makes sense. I'm terrible with visual spatial stuff (no sense of direction, and I had to drop a minor because of one class that was screwing me up, etc). I also wonder how to improve it. My performance IQ wasn't terrible, it was just above average,... but it didn't even come close to my verbal IQ and that just bothers me.
not quite sure if NLD people always fit the portrayal as far as math goes. but maybe i'm wrong. that's why this diagnosing nld/as stuff is so complicated.
an article on nvld vs as which you may have read:
http://www.nldontheweb.org/dinklage_1.htm
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-as of now official dx is ADHD (inattentive type) but said ADD (314.00) on the dx paper, PDD-NOS and was told looks like I have NLD
Well now it makes sense. I'm terrible with visual spatial stuff (no sense of direction, and I had to drop a minor because of one class that was screwing me up, etc). I also wonder how to improve it. My performance IQ wasn't terrible, it was just above average,... but it didn't even come close to my verbal IQ and that just bothers me.
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Without the gap I'd be genius overall.
Performance IQ: Can't remember. Somewhere in the 1teens.
Verbal IQ: 151
Overall: 139 (above average, not genius)
My visual spatial difficulties have been an incredible hindrance in my life. That class I dropped? Major contribution to my decision to drop out of college.
No, average them out...
(151+115)/2=133
That's high normal... genius starts at 140. I think. It should be three standard deviations above the norm... or was it two... Dangit. Anyway, 140 is the most common figure. Some gifted/talented programs use 130. IMO they shouldn't be using a number at all, but looking for kids with special talents in whatever area, even if their IQs are average...
Not that you can't get a PhD with a 133, mind you. It just isn't in the top half-percent, or whatever.
I'm going on the theory that the processing power you're using for your high verbal score is probably being taken away from the processing you'd use for your performance IQ... whether that has to do with what your development focuses on, or where you have more or better neural connections, or whether you're spending more brain space on it.
If you're assuming that "taking away the gap" meant raising your performance IQ to the level of your verbal IQ, then obviously your interpretation would be the logical conclusion.
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Performance IQ: Can't remember. Somewhere in the 1teens.
Verbal IQ: 151
Overall: 139 (above average, not genius)
My visual spatial difficulties have been an incredible hindrance in my life. That class I dropped? Major contribution to my decision to drop out of college.
As the average is 139, your performance IQ would be 127. That means you are very adept at visual spacial cognition. What field were you planning to enter? I can't see how that can be a hinderance in the real world. Consider yourself fortunate to be gifted at both.
Maybe it's some kind of a weighted average...
In which case my argument is invalid too.
Drat these psychologists, keeping their test-scoring methods so secret.
...yeah, I had another look at my papers, and my full-scale IQ is listed as being the same as my verbal IQ despite the performance IQ being lower.
There's definitely more than averages going on here.
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In which case my argument is invalid too.
Drat these psychologists, keeping their test-scoring methods so secret.
...yeah, I had another look at my papers, and my full-scale IQ is listed as being the same as my verbal IQ despite the performance IQ being lower.
There's definitely more than averages going on here.
You should really be asking whomever tested you (if possible) for an explanation. If you take the Stanford Binet, the full scale IQ is usually the average between the verbal and performance IQ's. My full-scale IQ was 119, although that figure would be extremely misleading. My verbal IQ was tested at 167 and my performance IQ was tested 72. That's a 95 point gap!
My intelligence is so unevenly distributed, that it befuddles many in the real world. They believe that the ability to do verbal and non-verbal tasks automatically correlate.
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Yeah, mine was the WAIS-III, not Stanford-Binet.
Found an interesting site on neuropsych testing...
http://www.psychologicaltesting.com/testinfo.htm
OK, more research--looks like the WAIS performance/verbal scores are individually normed, so the verbal subscore is based on a certain group of subtests, the performance subscore on another group, and the full-scale on all but two of the subtests; and all of those are based on the distribution of how the test sample did on the same subtests. Complicated... but I think could probably result in a full-scale that is NOT the average of performance and verbal.
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Those were the numbers I got from the printout from the last test I took. The interesting thing is that even when I took IQ tests at eleven, from the school psychologists to get into the gifted and talented program (the IQ cutoff for that is 130, I've never heard of it being higher but maybe it is at some schools), it showed the same gap. Gaps are indicative of learning disabilities but nobody said anything until I specifically asked in the last year. I've been having regular IQ tests (due to my brain cancer) for the last four years.
It just seems weird that nobody would catch it.
I don't feel that I'm adept. I can't even explain to bus drivers where I live. I can't find my way around anywhere. I can't explain the class I dropped because it's extremely technical, but the visual spatial difficulty made it impossible for me to do. It was like being dyslexic (although I'm not). Anything that has me LOOKING at something in order to follow directions.... is something I can't do.
For the field? Nothing. I'm dropping out of college.
Just curious, but what was this class?
Don't let one class get you down; try to go into a career suitable for your talents and personality.
the last quiz i took for verbal iq was 62, i just know its lower, but my spatial i think is on the lower end too, so who knows with me haha. However I can drive, not always good at judging distance, or judging reaction time, but a really good driver all around. I only drive at the most 15mins away.
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I can't drive. Legally, I'm not allowed to because of the epilepsy, but I've always failed my driving tests (perfect scores on the written parts though). I misjudge distances and the amount of time I have to do something and just get overwhelmed. I'm kind of glad I'm epileptic so I have an excuse NOT to drive because frankly, it terrifies me.
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This might be of interest in this thread:
"Elizabeth Wurst, a colleague of Hans Asperger, was the first to identify the variation in the profile of cognitive abilities associated with Asperger's syndrome. She and Hans Asperger noted that many of the children they saw in the children's clinic in Vienna had a Verbal IQ significantly greater than their Performance IQ. A subsequent review of the cases seen by Asperger and his colleagues over three decades confirmed that 48 per cent of the children had a significantly higher Verbal IQ than Performance IQ (Hippler and Klicpera 2004). The percentage of children having no significant difference between Verbal IQ and Performance IQ was 38 per cent, but 18 per cent of children with Asperger's syndrome demonstrated the opposite pattern, namely a Performance or visual reasoning IQ significantly greater than Verbal IQ."
- The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome by Tony Attwood, pg. 229
"It is interesting that there have been studies that have not identified a clear superiority of Verbal IQ over Performance IQ in the majority of children with Asperger's syndrome, especially in children who intellectually very able (Manjivina and Prior 1999, Szatmari et al. 1990). A recent study has also suggested that the gap between Verbal IQ and Performance IQ closes as age increases (Dickerson Mayes and Calhoun 2003). Thus, there is no unique cognitive profile on an intelligence test that can be used to confirm a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome."
- The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome by Tony Attwood, pg. 230