Linguistic Demands of the Oral Directions for Administering the WISC-IV and WISC-V

Abstract

As the diversity of the school-age population in Canada continues to increase, it is important for school psychologists to consider the potential influence of culture and language when assessing the cognitive abilities of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The purpose of this study is to examine the linguistic demand of the oral subtest directions for the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth Edition (WISC-IV) and Fifth Edition (WISC-V). Text-based statistics were extracted from the WISC-IV and WISC-V subtests to generate three composite scores: verbosity, complexity, and total demand. Results suggest that the oral directions of the WISC-IV subtests Block Design, Letter–number Sequencing, Cancellation, and Comprehension demonstrate relatively high linguistic demand. The oral subtest directions of the WISC-V subtests Picture Span, Visual Puzzles, and Figure Weights demonstrate relatively high linguistic demand. These findings suggest that the linguistic demand of oral directions should be taken into consideration when selecting and interpreting some subtests from both of these cognitive batteries.