Changes in IQ of schizophrenic children during residential treatment.

Abstract

THE report that follows will describe changes in the intelligence quotients of a group of severely disordered schizophrenic children while in residential treatment in the Henry Ittleson Center for Child Research. Intelligence was evaluated with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). (Other clinical tests, such as the Stanford-Binet [L, M] and Cattell, were employed as needed. The present study, however, is restricted essentially to results based on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale.) The intelligence test has been employed with these children as a tool for assaying their global adaptive competence and integrative capacity. Similarly, the intelligence quotient has been viewed as a measure of their effective intelligence rather than as a genetically determined intellectual potential. Under normal circumstances, emotional and motivational factors contribute to a child's performance in a test of general intelligence. Although the disciplined examiner of intelligence strives to minimize the influences of