THE WECHSLER SCALE AS AN INSTRUMENT TO DIAGNOSE

INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY
AUTORES: Dra. María De Lourdes Cedillo Armijos.
Dra. María Luisa Montánchez

INTRODUCTION RESULTS
At the UDIPSAI, a psychopedagogical evaluation is performed to students
presenting special educative needs, coming from public, private and
fiscomisional educative institutions, in the area of ​Educational Psychology
the function of evaluating aspects is performed, such as cognitive, visual –
manual coordination, abstract reasoning, basic concepts and functions and
the curricular level to issue a diagnostic and offer the resources,
recommendations and strategies to educative institutions in order to work
with students with educative needs. Among the instruments used to identify
the Intellectual Quotient are the Wechsler Intelligence Scales such as WISC
V- WPSSI III y WAIS IV (1), these tests allow to get the student’s cognitive
level up to a 95% of reliability of the results (2). The Wechsler scales are
clinic tests of individual application destined to evaluate the individual’s
intellectual aptitudes, the obtained results of each of the scales, are grouped
into five cognitive capacities from which five specific scores, global indexes
and a general score that indicates the global intellectual quotient (IQ) of the
evaluated subject are obtained; it could also be used as a tool to detect high
capacity subjects, evaluate intellectual disability and to define weak or
strong points of the subject related to its cognitive aptitudes. (3).
The IQ lower end is defined by the Intellectual Quotient score < 69, and it is
denominated as an intellectual disability that includes functional limitations
for its daily life, social and intellectual abilities; it can be originated by various
causes and cognitive profiles and generates learning difficulties, low
academic performance and sometimes school failure. The intellectual
capacity is considered as a condition associated to neurodevelopment,
affecting infant population and unchaining other possible development
alterations (4).

METHODOLOGY
This study is a correlational pre-experimental work, with a quantitative and
transversal approach.
The population under study is made up of 2115 children and adolescents
aged between 4 and 16 years, who represent 90% of the cases attended in
the UDIPSAI. The mean age was 9.9 years and the standard deviation was
4.2 years. There are diagnoses of people with intellectual disabilities older
than 16 years who have been evaluated. Women represent 33.9% and men
66.03%. We worked on the entire population finding different sample
values ​depending on the variable tested, both by the application
characteristics of the test in particular and by the attrition problems that
usually occur in psychopedagogical centers.
The used Wechsler scales; WISC-IV composed of 4 factors (Verbal
comprehension, Work memory, Perceptual Reasoning and Processing
speed) and 15 sub-factors, of individual application from 6 years 0 months
up to 16 years and 11 months. For the students aged between 4 years 0
months and 5 years 11 months the WPPSI- III scale was used. For the
population studied, a Chronback Alpha of 0.81 was obtained. In all cases,
original tests were used from the psychometric and cognitive neuroscience
laboratory of the Catholic University of Cuenca.
In the first contact the subjects and parents are informed of the type of
services offered by the UDIPSAI and they are given documentation
regarding the informed consent and anonymity guarantee for the research
studies. This format was submitted to validation by the bioethics committee
of the university itself.
The anamnesis of the institution that includes sociodemographic, perinatal
and medical data was taken into account for the analyzes.
CONCLUSIONS
It is concluded that the Weschler scales provide relevant information about
intellectual functioning and its clinical usefulness in the assessment of
intellectual disability.
Throughout this research it is verified that Weschler scales to measure
intelligence, correlate with other tests that measure the same construct: K-
BIT and Raven (medium and significant).
It is suggested to continue with the application of the Weschler scales in the
Unit of Psychopedagogical Diagnosis, Research and Support for Inclusion
as one of the instruments for the diagnosis of cognitive disability in the
educational context.
It is recommended to examine the psychometric properties of the tests used
in the UDIPSAI to measure intelligence in order to establish zonal and
national standard and regulations.
REFERENCES
[ 1 ] Weschler, D. “Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children-lll”. San Antonio, TX: Psychological
Corp. 1991.
[ 2 ] Sattler, J. M. “Assessment of children: Cognitive applications (4thEd.)”. La Mesa, CA: Jerome
M. Sattler Publisher. 2001.
[ 3 ] Wechsler, D., & Corral, S. WISC-IV: “Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV”. Madrid,
Spain: Tea, 2007.
[ 4 ] Artigas-Pallarés, J.; Rigau-Ratera, E.; García-Nonell, C. “Relationship between
intelligence capacity and neurodevelopment”. Rev Neurol, vol. 44.12, p. 739-44, 2007.
[ 5 ] OMS, O. M. Organización Mundial de la Salud. Obtenido de Organización Mundial de la
Salud: consulted on september 21 of 2018. Obtained from
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs352/es/. 2015.
[ 6 ] American Psychiatric Association. “Guidelines for the consultation of the DSM diagnostic
criteria 5”. Arlington VA. American Psychiatric Association. 2013.