Is the WISC III ever wrong?

[Fried Train]

Hey there-

I've been called bright for most of my life. Despite being born with spina bifida, I learned to read at age 2, and I was reading on a high school level by first grade. I remember asking about negative numbers in second grade and only getting weird looks from the teacher. My mother left her college textbooks around for me to read, and in this way I taught myself more than all of my grade school years combined could manage. I am 17 now, and while I am not as far above my peers anymore, I can still read over 1100 words a minute and memorize a complex picture after looking at it for a few seconds. I was recently named a state scholar for an exceptionally good ACT score (in the 97th percentile).

I'm sorry for bragging, but I just need to clarify that there has never been any evidence that I have a low or even and average IQ.

However, I've recently looked at the results of an IQ test given to me when I was 12. According to the WISC III, I have a full scale IQ of 98 (114 verbal, 83 performance).

I felt completely ruined for months after finding out about this. Several online tests have given me a score of 127-140, but I realize that those are probably inaccurate. I'm also aware that the WISC III is outdated, but that doesn't invalidate the score. I don't feel like I can pull myself together until I'm sure that the test is inaccurate.

I've thought about all the things that could have affected my score. I was diagnosed with severe depression within months of being tested. I was also found to have poor eyesight due to exotropia of the eye (this was completely untreated at the time the test was taken). I have poor fine motor skills as well.

I'm sorry for talking so much, but - could the IQ test be off somehow, or am I really as slow as the test suggests? Maybe the only driving force behind my childhood achievement was "determination" (even though I'm usually too lazy to study at all and I've always hated school). What do you guys think?

[SWM]

hello there FT,

reading over your post there are somethings which strike me as significant. some of the things you say lead me to think that you are attaching a lot of your self worth to your intellectual ability.

I felt completely ruined for months after finding out about this. ... ... ... I don't feel like I can pull myself together until I'm sure that the test is inaccurate.

I was diagnosed with severe depression within months of being tested.

having and maintaining a high ideal about yourself may lead to a diminished sense of self when the high ideal is unsustainable or in some way invalidated.

think about the following statments and tell me what you think about them
(i have a high IQ and therefore i have high value as a person)
(in order that people think highly of me i must be intelligent)
(if i did not have high intelligence then people would look down on me and i would be of lesser value as a person)

[Fried Train]

I place almost all of my self worth on my intelligence. I'm too disabled to be athletic and too lazy to be "determined" or "hard working" (the usual remedies for a low IQ). I will probably never be satisfied with myself as long as this test says I'm "average".

The first statement is somewhat true. The others are not true in my case, since I think most people would say something like "intelligence isn't everything" or "hard work and determination are what counts" or "you're a unique and special person". This isn't about what they think. In fact, most people will never know about my IQ, and therefore most people seem to think I'm pretty bright since all other evidence supports that.

I know it's possible to "succeed" with a low IQ. I also know that intelligence doesn't mean everything, and I would never think of someone else as "worthless" just because they aren't a member of Mensa. I have chosen to base my own self-worth around my IQ simply because it's almost the only thing I have to be proud of, and because I've always thought I could rely on it.

Even if I did have some other redeeming qualities, intelligence would be extremely important to me because I want to get a Ph.D. You need hard work, patience, and a strong spirit to get that far, but you also need to be highly intelligent. If I have a two digit IQ, how am I supposed to do anything that requires such a high degree of intelligence?

Thanks for replying.