Lower Verbal Ability in Japanese Delinquents Using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Fourth Edition: A Preliminary Investigation

Abstract

The relationship between juvenile delinquency and psychometric intelligence is supported by studies in behavioral sciences. In this literature, lower verbal ability is reported as an intellectual characteristic that is common in juvenile delinquents, based on assessment using the Wechsler scales. These scales incorporate the dual intelligence model, which includes both a Verbal Intelligence Quotient (VIQ) and a Performance IQ (PIQ). A meta-analysis conducted by Isen (2010) analyzed 131 studies to examine the discrepancy between PIQ and VIQ on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), WISC-R, and WISC-III among antisocial adolescents and children. The results revealed that the PIQ score of antisocial individuals was six points higher than their VIQ score in adolescents, and did not differ significantly from their VIQ score in young children. The lowest subtests were Vocabulary and Information on the WISC for delinquent adolescents. The most current version of the Wechsler series test (i.e., WISC-IV) was excluded from the meta-analysis because the WISC-IVadopted the four factors model instead of the traditional dual intelligence model. A few researchers have studied the intelligence of populations with criminal histories using the WISC-IV (e.g., Lopez-Leon and Rosner 2010; Sinclair et al. 2013). Lopez-Leon and Rosner (2010) examined the evaluation of clinical history in 27 adolescent defendants after committing violent crimes. Their cognitive abilities were assessed using the WISC-IV. The Full-Scale IQ (FSIQ) and four composite scores of the defendants were compared with the norm of the standardization sample (M=100, SD=15). Results showed that violent juveniles had lower scores on the FSIQ (M=82.9), a score of 78.5 on the Processing Speed Index (PSI), a Perceptual Reasoning Index (PRI) score of 87.8, and a Verbal Comprehension Index (VCI) score of 86.7. However, there was no difference when comparing the defendants to the standardized sample on the Working Memory Index (WMI; M=90.8). Perhaps, these results were due to the low statistical power of only 27 participants. In another study, Sinclair et al. (2013) investigated the relationship among neuropsychological deficits, antisocial behavior, and intelligence using the WISC-IV. Participants were 28 adolescents and children between 9 Asian Criminology (2014) 9:323–328 DOI 10.1007/s11417-014-9195-5