Search

The European Union has seen an increased number of asylum seekers and economic migrants over the past few years. There will be request to assess some of these individuals to see if they have an intellectual disability (ID). If this is to be done using the current internationally recognized definitions of ID, we will need to be confident that the IQ tests we have available are able to accurately measure the IQs of people from developing countries. The literature showing substantial differences in the mean measured IQs of different countries is considered. It is found that, although there are numerous problems with these studies, the overall conclusion that there are substantial differences in mean measured IQ is sound. However, what is not clear is whether there are large differences in true intellectual ability between different countries, how predictive IQ scores are of an individual from a developing country ability to cope, and whether or not an individual’s IQ would increase if they go from a developing country to a developed one. Because of these uncertainties, it is suggested that a diagnosis of ID should not be dependent on an IQ cut-off point when assessing people from developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seventeen 16-year-olds in special education were given both the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)-III and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)-IV in counterbalanced order. It was found that there was a significant floor effect on the WISC-IV due to low raw scores and raw scores of 0 being given a scaled score of 1. Extrapolating the relationship between raw scores and scaled scores down below raw score, one showed that the WISC-IV may be overestimating some low intelligence quotients (IQs) by several IQ point due to this floor effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]