WISC4 CHC classifications

  

This classification appears in the following papers:

Flanagan, Dawn p., Ortiz, Samuel O. and Alfonso, Vincent C.  Essentials of cross battery assessment.  Second edition, 2007, Wiley and sons

Flanagan, Ortiz, and Alfonso (2013). Essentials of Cross-Battery Assessment, 3rd edition. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.  In:  Vincent C. Alfonso and Dawn P. Flanagan. Cross-Battery Assessment for Intervention in Referrals for Suspected SLD. (slides 51-53)http://www.nasponline.org/conventions/2013/handouts/ms/nasp2013.pdf

Further classifications and definitions of the broad and narrow abilities were taken from this paper:

McGrew, K. S. APPLIED PSYCHOMETRICS 101.‏ #12: CHC Narrow Ability Assessment with the WJ III Battery. http://www.iapsych.com/iapap101/iapap10112.pdf 

Note: Long term storage and retrieval and Auditory processing are not measured by this test.

Broad ability	Definition	Narrow ability	Definition	Test
Fluid ability	The deliberate but flexible control of attention to solve novel “on the spot” problems that cannot be performed by relying exclusively on previously learned habits, schemas, and scripts.	Induction	The ability to observe a phenomenon and discover the underlying principles or rules that determine its behavior.	Matrix reasoning
				Picture concepts
				Similarities
				Word reasoning
		Quantitative Reasoning	The ability to reason, either with induction or deduction, with numbers, mathematical relations, and operators.	Arithmetic
Short-Term Memory	The ability to encode, maintain, and manipulate information in one‟s immediate awareness.	Memory Span	The ability to encode information, maintain it in primary memory, and immediately reproduce the information in the same sequence in which it was represented.	Digit span
		Working memory or attentional control	The ability to direct the focus of attention to perform relatively simple manipulations, combinations, and transformations of information within primary memory while avoiding distracting stimuli and engaging in strategic/controlled searches for information in secondary memory.	Letter number sequencing
				Digit span
				Arithmetic
				Working memory index
Processing Speed	The ability to perform simple repetitive cognitive tasks quickly and fluently.	Perceptual Speed	Speed at which visual stimuli can be compared for similarity or difference.	Symbol search
				Cancellation
		Rate-of-Test-Taking	Speed and fluency with which simple cognitive tests are completed.	Coding
Comprehension-Knowledge	Depth and breadth of knowledge and skills that are valued by one‟s culture.	Lexical Knowledge	Knowledge of the definitions of words and the concepts that underlie them.	Vocabulary
				Similarities
				Word reasoning
		General Verbal Information	Breadth and depth of knowledge that one’s culture deems essential, practical, or otherwise worthwhile for everyone to know.	Comprehension
				Information
				Picture completion
		Language Development	General understanding of spoken language at the level of words, idioms, and sentences.	Verbal comprehension index
Visual Processing	The ability to make use of simulated mental imagery (often in conjunction with currently perceived images) to solve problems.	Visualization	The ability to perceive complex patterns and mentally simulate how they might look when transformed (e.g., rotated, changed in size, partially obscured, and so forth).	Block design
		Flexibility of Closure	Ability to identify a visual figure or pattern embedded in a complex distracting or disguised visual pattern or array, when knowing in advance what the pattern is.	Picture completion