WISC-R performance patterns of referred Anglo, Hispanic, and American Indian children.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the performance patterns of Anglo, Hispanic, and American Indian children on the WISC-R. The WISC-R is the most commonly used measure of ability for students who are referred for psychoeducational evaluation to determine special education placement. For this study, the WISC-R was administered to 48 American Indian children from various tribes, 64 Hispanic children, and 64 Anglo children who attended an urban school in a large Southwestern city. The subjects of the study, who were in 1st through 8th grades, were referred for evaluation based on their academic difficulties or were being reevaluated to determine the necessity for continued placement in learning disability programs. An examination of mean differences between the Verbal and Performance scores of the three groups revealed that differences between the Verbal and Performance scores were smallest for Anglo subjects. The Hispanic and American Indian groups each had a difference of one standard deviation between their Verbal and Performance scores. An exploratory factor analysis resulted in differing factor structures for each group. The Anglo children demonstrated the three factor structure defined by Kaufman (1975). The principal axis factoring extracted four factors for the Hispanic group. Three factors were extracted for the American Indian subjects; however, Factor 1 and Factor 2 differed from those of the Anglo subjects. Factor 3 was similar to that of the Anglo subjects. A confirmatory factor analysis was used to evaluate the equivalency of a hypothesized factor structure and Kaufman's (1975) three-factor structure among the three groups. The hypothesized model was found to fit across the three groups. The best fit for this model was between the Anglo and American Indian subjects. The poorest fit was between the American Indian and Hispanic students. No fit between the Anglo and Hispanic students was found for Kaufman's three-factor model. Implications of these results and recommendations for future research examining the assessment of children from minority cultures are discussed.