Correlations and factor analysis of the WISC-R and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test for an adolescent psychiatric sample.

Abstract

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) and Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) scores of adolescent psychiatric patients were correlated and factor analyzed. The purposes were to explore the factor structure of these scores among a psychiatric sample for comparison with other samples in the literature and to determine whether the PPVT adds sufficient information to an intellectual assessment battery. Three factors emerged that were similar to previously reported factors using other subject samples. The PPVT loaded heavily on the factors emerging from the WISC-R, suggesting that the PPVT adds little to information gained from the WISC-R. The purposes of this study were to explore the factor structure of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) with an adolescent psychiatric sample and to compare the factor pattern of this sample with those patterns of normal (Kaufman, 1975) and retarded children (Van Hagen & Kaufman, 1975). Other purposes were to investigate the intercorrelations among the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) IQ and the WISC-R subtest and summary scores, and to determine whether the PPVT is adding sufficient information to an intellectual assessment battery. The usefulness of the PPVT for predicting Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children or WISC-R IQs is questionable (Appelbaum & Tuma, 1977; Condit, Lewandowski, & Saccuzzo, 1976). The WISC-R (including Digit Span) and the PPVT Form B (PPVT-B) were administered to 100 adolescents under inpatient or outpatient psychiatric care at the Lafayette Clinic, Detroit, Michigan, by trained examiners. Fifty-two of the adolescents were male, and 48 were female; 68 were white, and 32 were nonwhite; and their ages ranged from 10 years 9 months to 15 years It months (M = 14 years 2 months, SD = 1 year 1 month). The overall mean WISC-R IQ was 90.59 (SD= 17.39), and the mean PPVT IQ was