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The Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC) is a new test of intelligence and achievement for children ages 2½ through 12½ (Kaufman & Kaufman, 1983a,b). Released in the spring of 1983, the K-ABC has received a good deal of attention from professionals (Reynolds, 1984) and the public (Starr, 1983, West, 1982) alike.

Conventional intelligence tests are currently the subject and focus of much controversy, and are integrally involved in contemporary litigation and legislation. Polarization on the issues seems to prevail, as the views of outspoken advocates of standardized intelligence tests (e.g., Jensen, 1976) are diametrically opposed to the claims of vocal critics such as Hilliard (1975) and Williams (1972, 1974), who stress racial bias as an inherent property of the measuring instruments. The dichotomy in the affective reaction of many individuals toward intelligence tests also has its practical component. At the same time that critics are demanding a moratorium on intelligence tests (Bosma, 1973; Williams, 1970), or the replacement of norm-referenced measures with criterion-referenced tests (Bransford, 1974; Reynolds, 1974, 1975), many practitioners are forced to use the precise values of the obtained IQs (without regard to errors of measurement or the influence of behavioral variables on test scores) in order to make a diagnostic or placement decision.

This paper reviews WISC-R research that has particular pertinence for the assessment of learning disabilities. Three topics are treated in depth: factor analysis investigations, recategorization of subtests into Bannatyne's four groupings, and interscale/intrascale scatter. For each topic, relevant current research findings are summarized and interpreted, their implications for LD assessment are explored, and avenues for future research are delineated.

A group that has rarely been investigated empirically, learning disabled children with superior intelligence, was the focus of this study. The WISC-R profiles of 30 “uneven gifted” children were examined to assess strengths and deficits as well as scatter. The children exhibited extremely strong skills in verbal comprehension, expression, and conceptualization, in marked contrast to relative deficiencies in an area that has been defined variously as sequencing ability and distractibility. Verbal—Performance IQ discrepancies and subtest scatter were both significantly greater than values obtained for normal children and were also substantially greater than scatter indexes for LD children with normal intelligence. In addition to the characteristic profile of intellectual skills, the group of high-IQ LD youngsters also displayed a consistent “emotional” profile.

A joint-factor analysis was conducted using three major scales of the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities and eight Kaufman-ABC subtests as variables. Subjects were 90 children ages 4 to 8 1/2 yr. The scree test produced three significant factors, each interpretable from the Kaufman-ABC model. McCarthy Verbal scale was closely associated with the Achievement/Verbal factor; McCarthy Perceptual performance scale loaded highly on the Simultaneous Processing dimension; and McCarthy Quantitative was associated with all three factors. These results provide useful guidelines for interpreting a child's performance on each Index of the McCarthy scales in terms of the mental processing approach used to solve the task. However, the psychometric results must be coordinated with the examiner's clinical observations of the child's problem-solving strategies during administration of the McCarthy scales to understand more completely the processing demands of the Verbal, Perceptual performance, and Quantitative Scales.

The relationship of social class to the cognitive and motor Indexes yielded by the McCarthy scales was explored for representative groups of black ( n = 154) and white ( n = 862) children aged 2½ to 8½ yr. For both racial groups, children categorized as middle class scored significantly higher than working-class youngsters on each of the six indexes. The pattern of mean Indexes for different occupational groups resembled the pattern of mean IQs found in previous studies.

KAUFMAN, ALAN S., and DOPPELT, JEROME E. Analysis of WISC-R Standardization Data in Terms of the Stratification Variables. CmID DEVELOPMENT, 1976, 47, 165-171. The sampling plan for the standardization of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised was based on age groups stratified along the variables of sex, race, geographic region, parental occupation, and type of residence (urban vs. rural). The verbal, performance, and full-scale IQs of the standardization sample were analyzed according to classifications along these variables. Findings were compared with corresponding data in a study of the WISC standardization sample reported in 1950. The relationship between IQ and sex and between IQ and parental occupation group has not changed, although the differences between IQs of ruraland urbanreared youngsters have become smaller in the course of a generation. IQ differences between the sexes are not of practical importance. The average IQs of whites in the sample were about 1 SD higher than those of blacks, and IQ differences among the 5 parental occupation groups were also substantial. Regional differences were larger for blacks than for whites.