Appendix I

Linking WISC-IV Assessment Results to Educational Strategies and

Instructional Supports

Jennifer T. Mascolo

Assessment of cognitive functioning using the WISC-IV is a routine activity for

many practitioners working with school-aged children. While the WISC-IV yields
information often used in diagnostic decision making and in decisions regarding
eligibility for specific services, information obtained from a WISC-IV assessment
can also be used in selecting educational strategies and instructional supports to
address a student’s identified area(s) of need (Nicholson, Alcorn, & Erford, 2006;
Whitworth & Sutton, 2005; Wendling & Mather, 2008).
Although most practitioners who are involved in the administration and in-
terpretation of psychoeducational assessments understand that no single data
source should be used in isolation when planning or designing educational inter-
ventions and accommodations, this section focuses solely on WISC-IV data and
how the information generated from this battery offers unique information that
can inform intervention planning efforts. Consistent with best practices, other
forms of data/information (e.g., availability of materials, individual characteris-
tics of the learner) will ultimately be necessary to ascertain the utility of a specific
educational strategy or instructional support suggested herein.
While interpretive resources that assist in the generation of educational rec-
ommendations based on WISC-IV results are presently available, such resources
are based on the traditional WISC-IV structure (i.e., four global index scores and
one Full Scale score). This section extends upon these existing works by basing
the generation of educational strategies and instructional supports on data gen-
erated from the clinical cluster structure developed by Flanagan and Kaufman
(2004). You are also encouraged to use the WISC-IV Integrated (Chapter 8) to
understand the child more fully and to make the most appropriate recommenda-
tions regarding educational programming.
The eight clinical clusters developed by Flanagan and Kaufman (2004) are
comprised of two or more subtests. It is important to note that only three of
the eight clusters are comprised of core subtests only; the remaining five clinical
clusters contain at least one supplemental or optional WISC-IV subtest. As such,
I1

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 2 APPENDIX I

practitioners who are interested in applying the information presented in this ap-
pendix will need to ensure that their assessments are organized in such a way so
as to allow for the derivation of one or more of the WISC-IV clinical clusters (see
Chapter 4 for more details about these clusters).

FLUID REASONING (Gf ) CLUSTER

The Fluid Reasoning (Gf) cluster is comprised of three tasks—namely, Picture

Concepts, Matrix Reasoning, and Arithmetic—that require a student to reason
with visual information and/or perform mental mathematical computations in-
volving basic operations and the application of foundational concepts. Before
analyzing performance on this cluster, or any of the clinical clusters, you should
first determine if the cluster is to be interpretable (see Chapter 4). If a cluster is
not interpretable, then information drawn from a student’s performance must
be based on individual subtest-level performance that is further corroborated
or supported with additional testing and/or other forms of available data (e.g.,
teacher reports, report cards, work samples, and so forth).
An individual with difficulty on the Gf cluster may have difficulty interpret-
ing visual information or making predictions that are based on a consideration
of such information (e.g., pie charts, illustrative graphs). Additionally, because
the Gf cluster contains an arithmetic task, a student with reasoning difficulties
may be able to perform routine mathematical computations, but he or she may
have trouble when such computations are not readily evident (e.g., a computa-
tion is couched within a word problem) and, as such, he or she has to identify the
underlying computation suggested by a problem or otherwise apply arithmetical
reasoning skills (as opposed to rote computational skills) to arrive at an answer.
For a student who has clear difficulty with mathematical concepts, it is impor-
tant to provide educational recommendations that focus on instructional deliv-
ery, learner expectations, and instructional supports. In terms of instructional
delivery, it is important that the teacher provides explicit, concrete instruction as
opposed to discussing abstract concepts with little to no concrete support. For
instance, if a student is learning about sales tax, it would be important for the
teacher to not just present a word problem regarding a sales purchase involving a
taxable item, but rather to provide a copy of a garment ticket, along with a sales
receipt, and physically point out the various receipt components (e.g., item price,
tax rate, total) so that the student can actually see the process (e.g., a coat that is
$150.00 becomes a purchase of $162.38, based on a rate of 8.25% tax). In terms
of learner expectations, teachers must be encouraged to remember that it is un-
likely that an individual with difficulties in this domain will be able to complete

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 APPENDIX I 3

work within the same time frame as same-grade peers because the conceptual
knowledge central to the computation is not automatic for the student. As such,
the teacher must provide adequate time for the student to complete the problem
and should not expect the student’s ability to work within a given time frame to
improve unless and until he or she has mastered the requisite concepts (i.e., com-
putational automaticity). Finally, teachers must provide instructional supports
for students with math difficulties. Such supports will generally involve the pro-
vision of manipulatives when demonstrating and/or introducing mathematical
concepts. For instance, if a teacher is presenting a unit on money, he or she may
want to provide a calculator, mock cash register, or paper money to demonstrate
various computations. In all, it is important to teach concretely and allow the stu-
dent to experience learning through the use of manipulatives as well as real-life,
relatable situations involving math.
To intervene with students who demonstrate more general reasoning difficul-
ties (e.g., perform poorly on the Picture Concepts and Matrix Reasoning tasks),
practitioners may want to recommend interventions that incorporate classifica-
tion activities and experiences that involve formulating generalizations between
characteristics and functions/uses of objects or concepts. Since the fluid reason-
ing tasks in this clinical cluster are primarily visual in nature, providing activities
that expose a student to whole-part relationships may also be useful. For instance,
a student could be offered activities that require him or her to consider objects or
pictures and identify similarities, differences, or patterns within the component
parts of such pictures or objects (e.g., classifying physically different items based
on common uses, such as a knife and a plate, both of which can be used for eat-
ing). Additionally, remedial techniques that emphasize sequencing, classification,
matching, or sorting are all useful in addressing problems on the Gf cluster tasks.
Exercises that require the student to focus visual attention are useful as they can
help train the student to attune him- or herself to visual patterns. For instance,
teachers can use color coding, highlighting, or underlining as techniques for di-
recting visual attention. The visuals can represent concepts (e.g., all paths on a
map that are highlighted represent battle sites; all words that appear in boldface
are action words). A student can also play games that require a specific level of
attention to recurring visual patterns (e.g., dominoes, connect-four, tic-tac-toe).
Students can be required to sort objects according to visually similar character-
istics (e.g., sort playing cards by suit). Over time, the sorting tasks should move
from concrete to more abstract (e.g., sorting foods based on shape, color, and
then, later, sorting them based on nutritional value).
There are times when conceptual distinctions are not as problematic for a
student as are the actual visual stimuli. In cases where the student appears

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 4 APPENDIX I

overwhelmed by visual stimuli, practitioners may want to recommend a reduction

of visual stimuli, the use of aids (e.g., highlighters) to direct a student’s visual at-
tention, specific supports (e.g., enlarged font) to address issues with visual acuity,
and, finally, visual tracking exercises that provide the student with an opportunity
to strengthen visual discrimination skills (e.g., require a student to circle all the
letter “e’s,” followed by all italicized letter “e’s,” and finally, all boldface, italicized
letter “e’s”).
As with any remedial suggestion, individuals delivering the remedial activities
or intervention program should start at the student’s particular level and pro-
ceed accordingly. For instance, someone who is extremely deficient in visual/
mathematical reasoning skills may need to start with more concrete objects and
pictures before proceeding to work with more abstract stimuli (words or verbally
presented concepts).

NONVERBAL FLUID REASONING (Gf-NONVERBAL) CLUSTER

The Nonverbal Fluid Reasoning (Gf-nonverbal) cluster is comprised of the same

tasks as the Fluid Reasoning (Gf) cluster with the exception of Arithmetic. This
cluster may be useful to consider if the Gf cluster is noninterpretable due to vari-
ability in performance between Arithmetic and two other tasks comprising the
Gf cluster. Recommendations and interventions for a student with weaknesses
on this cluster are similar to those offered for the Gf cluster, with the obvious
exception that such a student will not necessarily need intervention(s) or accom-
modations related to math applications.

VISUAL PROCESSING (Gv) CLUSTER

The Visual Processing (Gv) cluster is comprised of two tasks—namely, Block

Design and Picture Completion. These tasks require a student to analyze and
integrate various forms of visual stimuli. While one Gv task (i.e., Block Design)
involves relatively simple visual stimuli, it requires a fair degree of fine motor
dexterity. The other Gv task (i.e., Picture Completion) has little or no motoric
demands (e.g., students can provide a verbal response or a simple pointing re-
sponse), but it involves increased levels of attention to more minute visual details
(e.g., a small portion of a flower that is missing). A student with difficulties on this
cluster may have difficulty with either motor demands or visual stimuli, or both.
If difficulties are apparent with both the physical and perceptual modalities, the
student may have a more significant visual-motor deficit and therefore may need

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 APPENDIX I 5

educational strategies or instructional supports that address both issues (e.g., if

given a math worksheet, he or she may need to have fewer items on a page, grid-
ded line structure surrounding numbers, and be afforded frequent breaks to ad-
dress any issues related to motor fatigue).
If it is determined that a student’s difficulty on this cluster is twofold (i.e.,
related to both motor and perceptual difficulties), then it is important to generate
recommendations and/or suggest interventions that include a visual-motor train-
ing component. Puzzle activities are useful in addressing perceptual-motor dif-
ficulties. If the motor deficit is pronounced, then puzzles with specific supports
(e.g., knobs, magnetic wells) can be used initially. Puzzles are even useful for per-
ceptual deficits and there are some puzzles that have useful visual supports (e.g.,
the picture of the appropriate puzzle part appears in the puzzle well; the puzzle
well is labeled with the name of the shape or object that fits in the well). Copying
exercises are also useful as are dot-to-dot activities as this latter activity can help
a student perceive and appreciate part-to-whole relationships. Building three-
dimensional models, physically sorting shapes using a shape sorter, or forming
patterns using blocks is useful. Another activity that may be helpful, particularly
for perceptual weaknesses, is having a student attempt to find hidden objects or
shapes within a particular visual field. Finally, reproducing abstract designs from
memory and having a student engage in paper folding activities exposes him or
her to important perceptual-motor skills.
While the aforementioned activities may seem to be far removed from the
classroom, it is important to note that fine-motor concerns can have a far-
reaching impact on academic functioning across domains. For instance, if
someone has a perceptual-motor deficit and he or she has poor motor plan-
ning, he or she may not line up math problems correctly on a page, resulting
in incorrect computations. An individual with visual discrimination difficulties
may also confuse operational symbols, again resulting in inaccurate responses.
A student with a fine motor deficit may experience fairly consistent and rapid
motor fatigue and, therefore, may attempt to self-accommodate by reducing
the amount of written work he or she produces. As such, these students may
fail to record important information during lectures requiring note-taking. Ad-
ditionally, test taking may be problematic for similar reasons (e.g., difficulty
transferring responses accurately to a scantron). In general, although visual
processing (i.e., spatial relations) has not been found to have strong, consistent
relations with major achievement areas (e.g., reading, writing, and math), defi-
cits in perceptual-motor functioning can have an indirect impact on achieve-
ment that is seen across domains.

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 6 APPENDIX I

Despite efforts to improve a student’s fine motor or perceptual functioning,

there are often times that deficits are so pronounced that specific accommoda-
tions are required. Generally, there are some useful accommodations such as re-
ducing the amount of written work required of the student (e.g., minimizing copy
work, providing a note taker or a second set of notes), providing additional time
for perceptual-motor tasks, and reducing the amount of visual stimuli on a page
so that a task does not overwhelm a student.

LEXICAL KNOWLEDGE (Gc-VL) CLUSTER

The Lexical Knowledge (Gc-VL) Cluster is comprised of two tasks—Vocab-

ulary and Word Reasoning—that require a student to define words as well as
demonstrate his or her ability to reason with words, respectively. A student
who demonstrates weaknesses on the tasks comprising this cluster may experi-
ence more far-reaching academic difficulties in domains involving both recep-
tive (e.g., reading/listening comprehension) and expressive (e.g., writing/oral
expression) language skills. While a variety of cognitive processing deficits
(e.g., memory span, long-term retrieval, language development) may explain a
limited amount of words and/or limited ability to reason with words, a lack of
exposure is also a possible explanation for weaknesses in this domain.
In general, remediation should focus on activities such as word games (e.g.,
Hangman, Scrabble, crosswords), dictionary use, fill-in-the-blank sentence ac-
tivities that include a word bank, and commercial materials that are designed to
build word knowledge (e.g., Vocabopoloy, Picture Dictionary, Vocabulary Boost-
ers). A student with difficulty in this area should also be exposed to activities that
teach prefixes and suffixes (e.g., the workbook, Spotlight on Vocabulary: Roots, Pre-
fixes, and Suffixes; LoGiudice & LaQuay, 2004). It is also helpful to have a student
engage in original writing exercises and review his or her writing while discussing
alternative words (e.g., synonyms) or descriptive words (e.g., adjectives) that can
be used to enhance the overall quality of his or her writing. For very young stu-
dents, or those with significant limitations, it is useful to label objects or pictures
of objects. In the classroom, a student may benefit from a picture dictionary.
Finally, direct teaching of vocabulary using materials such as flash cards is also
useful. It may be motivating to teach vocabulary that is related to high-interest
areas or topics for a student. For instance, if the student has a hobby such as
baseball, an individual working with the student can teach words like umpire,
pitch, stadium, and so forth.

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 APPENDIX I 7

To address difficulties with perceiving or explaining the relation between two

or more objects or concepts, it would be important to provide activities that em-
phasize classification and generalization. Riddles are also helpful in building rea-
soning skills. Finally, a student may enjoy writing endings to unfinished stories
and/or playing a story-chain game whereby a group of students build a story by
providing a little bit of information at a time.

GENERAL INFORMATION (Gc-K0) CLUSTER

The General Information (Gc-K0) cluster is comprised of two tasks of general

knowledge—Information and Comprehension—that require a student to an-
swer questions regarding factual information and foundational knowledge (e.g.,
on which continent is India?) as well as answer questions that reflect an age-
appropriate level of social and environmental awareness (e.g., what would you do
if you saw someone’s car stuck on the side of the road?), respectively. A student
demonstrating difficulties on this clinical cluster may have a limited knowledge
of factual information or may have difficulty with the application of knowledge
in everyday situations. In the educational setting, students with deficits in general
information may experience particular difficulty in content-area subjects (e.g., so-
cial studies, sciences). When a student lacks general foundational knowledge (e.g.,
knowledge of the four seasons), he or she may have difficulty when required to
learn about topics (e.g., weather, migration patterns) that presuppose such back-
ground knowledge.
From an intervention standpoint, advanced organizers that provide an out-
line of material to be discussed may be useful for a student as it can serve to
activate knowledge or build a cursory level of information through which the
student can filter new information and facts. Similarly, text previewing strate-
gies would be useful for a student to learn as they can be used independently.
Other instructional interventions might be having the student engage in activi-
ties that allow him or her to express all that he or she knows about a particular
topic or concept (e.g., prewriting activities, “what we know versus what we
want to learn” frameworks) so that individuals working with the student under-
stand where the deficiencies or gaps in knowledge exist. Knowing the student’s
present level of knowledge is particularly important as it can allow a teacher
to organize materials and activities that allow the student to feel partially suc-
cessful (as he or she is able to independently contribute some knowledge to
a learning situation) and it can minimize the need for extensive teaching and
review of material for every subject encountered (e.g., if the student has a

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 8 APPENDIX I

sound knowledge base relating to a specific topic, material review of such a

topic can be omitted).

LONG-TERM MEMORY (Gc-LTM) CLUSTER

The Long-Term Memory (Gc-LTM) cluster is comprised of two tasks from both
the Gc-VL and Gc-K0 clusters—one that assesses a student’s knowledge of word
definitions (Vocabulary) and the other that assesses a student’s general fund of
informational knowledge (Information). Students with difficulties on tasks com-
prising this cluster may have difficulty demonstrating their knowledge due to
retrieval difficulties and may also experience difficulty when there is a notable
temporal delay (e.g., weeks) between the new learning and subsequent demand
to retrieve the information. This latter difficulty may be related to an inadequate
opportunity to fully encode the information to be learned.
From the perspective of intervention, altered test formats (e.g., recognition
versus retrieval based formats) are helpful and teaching the student to use devices
(e.g., mnemonics and key words) to serve as primers or cueing systems that aid
in accessing information may also be helpful. Beyond these suggestions, instruc-
tional modifications that focus on teaching factors should also be considered.
For instance, teachers may do well to alter their rate of presentation of informa-
tion to be learned (e.g., present information at a slower pace so that the student
has adequate time to process the incoming stimuli). Teachers may also want to
make connections explicit between previously learned information and newly
presented concepts. Finally, teachers may want to check periodically for under-
standing so that any issues are clarified more immediately and the student’s focus
can be directed toward incoming information rather than being directed toward
trying to understand previously presented information that he or she perceived
as confusing.
In terms of remediation, individuals working with a student that demonstrates
a weakness on the tasks comprising this cluster would do well to use methods
that provide both direct (e.g., experiential) and indirect (e.g., lecture) exposure to
wide areas of knowledge (Nicholson, Alcorn, & Erford, 2006). Using technology
(e.g., educational television programs and web quests) as a vehicle for exposing a
student to new information may be beneficial in terms of motivating the student
to become engaged with learning, thereby increasing his or her attention and
likelihood of encoding the information.
Because the Gc-LTM clinical cluster involves a task of word knowledge (i.e.,
Vocabulary), activities that focus on building word knowledge are important to
incorporate into interventions. It is important to remember that, while the student

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 APPENDIX I 9

is acquiring new words and developing his or her lexicon, he or she may require
certain supports (e.g., word banks, use of a thesaurus and/or dictionary, feedback
regarding written work) in the classroom environment.

SHORT-TERM MEMORY (Gsm-WM) CLUSTER

The Short-Term Memory (Gsm-WM) cluster is identical to the WISC-IV WMI

cluster and, therefore, is comprised of two tasks—Digit Span and Letter-Number
Sequencing—both of which assess a student’s ability to hold information in im-
mediate awareness and manipulate or transform it in some way. A student with
difficulty on this cluster may have difficulty holding information in mind long
enough to use it (e.g., copying definitions into a notebook as a teacher is orally
defining new terms) and may also perform distinctly different when required to
perform tasks with known or overlearned information versus newly learned in-
formation (e.g., a writing task on a familiar versus unfamiliar topic).
In general, there are specific instructional recommendations that may prove
useful for an individual with short-term memory deficits. First, providing brief
directions, one at a time, and supplementing lengthier instructions with written
directions is useful. Second, writing important information or key points on the
board during a lecture is often helpful in reducing the cognitive load on a student’s
auditory memory. Repeating information often and encouraging frequent repeti-
tion and review of recently learned material is important.
Given that divided attention is sometimes impacted by a memory deficit, it is
important to minimize the number of tasks requiring such attention (e.g., copying
notes in a notebook while listening to a lecture) or to provide extended time for
specific tasks, such as copying from a board. Using text preview prior to a reading
task or section reviews prior to introducing a new concept are also important in
instructing a student with a weakness in the area of short-term memory.

VERBAL FLUID REASONING (Gf-VERBAL) CLUSTER

The Verbal Fluid Reasoning (Gf-verbal) Cluster is comprised of two tasks—

Similarities and Word Reasoning—that require a student to reason with words and
to identify abstract conceptual relationships between pairs of words. A student with
difficulty on this task may not be able to reason well with verbal knowledge (e.g.,
words or abstract concepts). As such, a student with verbal fluid reasoning weak-
nesses may need to use specific aids that make the reasoning process more concrete
(e.g., guided questions lists). Moreover, such a student may benefit from tasks that
draw upon overlearned information rather than those that require the student to

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 10 APPENDIX I

reason with newly learned information. In general, any remediation efforts should
be tailored to a student’s present level of functioning and proceed accordingly.
For instance, if a student demonstrates significant normative weaknesses on this
cluster then it would be advisable to use manipulatives (e.g., physical objects) when
attempting to have a student pinpoint abstract features of objects (e.g., similarities
in shape or size) rather than utilizing abstract stimuli (e.g., words). While manipula-
tive items or concrete objects (e.g., pictures) may be used initially with young stu-
dents or those with significant deficits, eventually the focus should progress to more
academically relevant stimuli (e.g., sentences, words, oral descriptions). Linguistic
activities that focus on identifying and, later, generating synonyms and antonyms or
words that belong to the same class (e.g., adjectives, nouns) are useful in providing
students with opportunities to reason with verbal information.
While providing students with activities that address their area(s) of weak-
ness is important because such activities represent opportunities for practice with
specific skills (e.g., abstracting with verbal information), such activities can also
be diagnostic. That is, the individual working with the student can see where the
breakdown in reasoning may occur. It may be that there are some gaps in word
knowledge that are impeding reasoning whereas in other cases it may be that the
student has not learned to impose any sort of organization to the analysis of
similarities and differences or the generation of abstractions. The former finding
should prompt the individual delivering the intervention to incorporate word-
building activities, whereas the latter should indicate the need for direct strategy
or procedural instruction.
Nicholson and colleagues (2006) provide a variety of activities that can be
used for individuals that demonstrate difficulty on the WISC-IV Word Reasoning
and Similarities tasks, both of which comprise the Gf-verbal cluster. Among their
suggestions are activities such as (a) picture matching tasks wherein a student can
be presented with a pair of pictures and asked to identify similarities and/or dif-
ferences; (b) picture sorting tasks wherein a student can sort a series of pictures
into preestablished categories or groups; (c) oral cloze tasks wherein a student
must reason with verbal information to arrive at an answer (e.g., “A is the first and
Z is the last _______ of the alphabet); (d) oral cloze tasks wherein a student must
use information from the beginning and end of the paragraph to discern missing
information in the middle of the paragraph; (e) dictionary work wherein a stu-
dent finds entries for similar sounding words and/or uses a thesaurus to identify
synonyms to use in writing tasks; and (f) games such as “I Spy,” “Clue,” or others
that require a student to listen to a series of clues before identifying an object or
arriving at an answer to a question.

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 APPENDIX I 11

ADDITIONAL REMEDIAL SUGGESTIONS FOR EDUCATIONAL

RECOMMENDATIONS AND INSTRUCTIONAL SUPPORTS

Rapid Reference I.1 contains educational strategies and instructional support

recommendations for specific cognitive weaknesses identified through the ex-
amination of clinical cluster data, some of which were presented previously and
others that constitute additional suggestions. This rapid reference by no means
constitutes an exhaustive list, but rather it provides a sampling of strategies and
recommendations that practitioners can use in the initial intervention planning
phase (see also Wendling & Mathur. 2008).

Rapid Reference 1.1

Sampling of Educational Strategies and Instructional Support
Recommendations for Specific Cognitive Weaknesses
Visual Processing
• For students with perceptual-motor difficulties impacting note-taking, (a) pro-
vide a note-taker; (b) provide a second set of notes; (c) utilize a guided-notes
format to reduce the amount of writing required; (d) allow for lectures to be
tape-recorded.
• Enlarge print on written handouts and worksheets using a copier or computer
and/or commercially available materials (e.g., texts from the Recording for the
Blind and Dyslexic; www.rfbd.org).
• Allow for the use of a page magnifier for tasks involving reading.
• Minimize the amount of visual information on a page.
• Use visual devices, such as highlighting, underlining, or color-coding to focus
attention on important visual information (e.g., operational symbols, test direc-
tions, key words, and so forth).
• To help a student keep focus when working with visual material, use a “window”
overlay (e.g., an index card with a rectangular cutout) to block out peripheral
stimuli that can overwhelm the student. Alternatively, use a ruler for line-by-line
reading, or encourage the student to keep his or her place with his or her finger.
• For writing assignments, impose visual structure by darkening lines, using raised-
line paper (to provide kinesthetic feedback), or folding paper to create large and
distinct visual sections.
Short-Term and Long-Term Memory
• Provide written instructions to augment oral instructions.
• Provide frequent repetition and review.
(continued)

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 12 APPENDIX I

• Shorten the number of directions given at any one time.

• Utilize strategies (skimming, scanning, text preview) to increase the student’s fa-
miliarity with material, thereby minimizing the demands on short-term memory.
• Maintain eye contact with the student during the provision of oral instructions.
• Minimize extraneous auditory and visual stimuli to reduce competing demands
on attention.
• Record lengthy sequences of information so that the student has time for repeti-
tion and adequate opportunity to encode information into long-term memory.
• Require the student to repeat and/or paraphrase directions to facilitate the
encoding and storage of information.
• Provide additional time for the student to answer questions and complete
assignments.
• Provide prompts or cues to facilitate the student’s retrieval of information.
• Provide recognition-type test formats that employ multiple-choice, true-false, or
matching formats to minimize the demands on free recall of information.
• Use visual association and mental imagery techniques to support the encoding
and retrieval of information.
• Encourage the use of mnemonic devices to facilitate the storage and retrieval of
information (e.g., using the acronym HOMES to recall the Great Lakes of Huron,
Ontario, Michigan, Eerie, and Superior).
• Allow for specific aids (e.g., multiplication tables) to be utilized during assignments.
Fluid Reasoning/Nonverbal Fluid Reasoning
• Externalize the reasoning process by explaining strategies and steps aloud.
• Provide a guided-questions list for recurring procedural steps (e.g., how to
approach a word problem, how to answer an inferential question regarding
a story character’s emotional state).
• Teach abstract concepts by using concrete examples and manipulatives/
models.
• For arithmetic difficulties, refer to websites that provide remedial activities,
worksheets, and suggestions for accommodating students with math difficul-
ties in the classroom (e.g., www.mathgen.com; www2.ups.edu/community/
tofu).
• Provide activities that encourage the student to activate prior knowledge,
make predictions, and monitor meaning during learning tasks.
• Provide hands-on, experiential activities that engage the student and actively
involve him or her in the process of learning.
• Assess the student’s prior knowledge and activate such knowledge before
teaching new concepts or presenting novel tasks.
(continued)

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 APPENDIX I 13

• Teach procedures and concepts concretely and intensely (with frequent repeti-
tion) by using manipulatives and visual aids (e.g., figures, diagrams).
• Externalize the reasoning process by verbalizing the relationships between spe-
cific concepts and procedures. Help the student to make connections between
understood information before focusing on the introduction of new knowledge.
• Use previewing strategies and advanced organizers to facilitate the student’s
comprehension of material, thereby improving his or her likelihood of success
when reasoning with such information.
• Use examples, modeling, and provide definitions when introducing new concep-
tual material with which the student must apply his or her reasoning skills.
• Review concepts that were presented and review the importance of such con-
cepts as well as the relationship between newly presented concepts and previously
learned information.
Cognitive Processing
• Allow for extended time.
• Reduce the number of items to complete, questions to answer, length of writing
and reading assignments, and so forth.
• Build in “wait-time” when requesting information from a student with a process-
ing speed deficit.
• Utilize strategies appearing in previous “Short-Term Memory” section.
• Pay attention to time of day when assigning tasks requiring rapid mental pro-
cessing (e.g., end of day or early morning may not be ideal as cognitive resources
may be limited and/or exhausted at these times).
• Provide opportunities for frequent practice to assist students in acquiring auto-
maticity in specific basic skill areas (e.g., basic math computations, spelling).
Lexical Knowledge, General Information, and Verbal Fluid Reasoning
• For difficulties with word knowledge and general fund of information, refer to
websites focused on building vocabulary and general informational knowledge.
Some websites include:
• www.vocabulary.com
• www.askanexpert.com
• www.encyclopedia.com
• www.surfnetkids.com/games
• www.m-w.com/game (word game of the day)
• www.randomhouse.com/words
• www.wordsmith.org/awad/index.html
• Provide models for reasoning with verbally based information (e.g., when iden-
tifying similarities between objects based on physical characteristics a teacher
(continued)

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 14 APPENDIX I

might state, “we have pictures of a marble, a basketball, and a dime. . .so, we
have small, large, small. . .so the two pictures that are most similar are. . .?”).
• Ensure that the student understands the words and/or concepts that he or she
is being asked to reason with.
• Increase the student’s range of word knowledge by using activities that increase
synonym knowledge.
• Provide exercises involving verbal analogies and explain the relationship be-
tween the words directly and explicitly before requiring the student to solve
analogies independently.

Testing of Limits

In addition to administering the WISC-IV clinical clusters to obtain a clearer

understanding of a student’s level of functioning across specific cognitive do-
mains, practitioners should engage in testing of limits to obtain useful informa-
tion regarding an individual’s functioning, thereby assisting in the selection of
educational strategies and instructional supports.
Testing-of-limits procedures can assist the practitioner in evaluating specific
hypotheses (e.g., is a retrieval issue impacting the student’s ability to define words?)
or in evaluating the potential utility of specific accommodations (e.g., does this
student benefit from reduced motor demands on tasks?).
For the clinical clusters involving verbally based tasks (e.g., Lexical Knowledge,
General Information, Long Term Memory, Verbal Fluid Reasoning), practitioners
can evaluate errors and readminister a sample of items answered incorrectly using
a multiple-choice format. Practitioners can then, based on additional analyses,
determine whether the student appeared to respond to the alternative format (i.e.,
multiple-choice). If the data suggest that the student’s performance was partly
attributable to task format, then such data can be used to inform accommodation
recommendations (e.g., use multiple-choice as opposed to open-ended response
formats on verbally based tasks whenever possible).
Knowledge of test performance that was mediated by the test format is also
important in generating instructional recommendations, primarily because it pro-
vides information about the student’s ability to answer questions during class in
the absence of external prompts or cues (Holdnack & Weiss, 2006). That is, if a
student cannot generate a definition for a target word unless given multiple-choice
options, then it is unlikely that the student would be able to spontaneously retrieve
known information without prompting in the classroom environment. As such,
the student’s teacher would likely need to modify instruction to provide support

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 APPENDIX I 15

(e.g., providing part of a response, making references to prior knowledge) when

asking questions regarding new or recently learned information.
In addition to multiple choice, true-false formats may also be used during
testing of limits. For example, if a practitioner has a student who performed
poorly on the Similarities subtest, he or she may wish to select a few incorrect
responses and present a “True” or “False” format to ascertain the amount of
factual knowledge that a student has available to reason with. For instance, if a
student is unable to answer how a banana and an orange are alike, the examiner
can say, “Tell me if the following statements are True or False: (a) A banana and
an orange are the same shape; (b) A banana and an orange are the same color;
and (c) a banana and an orange are both fruits.” If the student correctly states
that the third option is the only true statement, then the examiner has informa-
tion suggesting that difficulty reasoning as opposed to inadequate knowledge is
impacting the expression of reasoning ability. More importantly, knowing this
allows the practitioner to focus intervention efforts on building reasoning skills
rather than prescribing activities aimed at increasing the student’s fund of factual
information or verbal knowledge (e.g., vocabulary exercises).
Items from the visually-based clinical clusters (Visual Processing Cluster, Nonver-
bal Fluid Reasoning Cluster) can also be modified and represented in a multiple-choice
format, can allow for more involved learning trials (where the reasoning process and
task approach is made more obvious), or can be presented with time variations (e.g.,
allowing extended time on readministered items). Generally, the alternative presenta-
tion formats/timing variations can assist practitioners in developing accommoda-
tions associated with time allowances (e.g., need for extended time on tasks) and/
or the need for accommodations that account for fine motor difficulties (e.g., use of
pencil grips to improve speed and/or quality of writing; Holdnack & Weiss, 2006).
The working memory clinical cluster items can be modified to involve the use
of visual stimuli in addition to auditory stimuli, allow for a student to either view
stimulus items directly and/or perform paper-and-pencil computations (e.g., Arith-
metic items), and/or entirely alter item-level stimuli to reduce the load on a student’s
working memory (e.g., use letter stimuli that form whole words: k-i-t-t-e-n). Overall,
the varying stimuli and formats of the working memory process tests allow for
practitioners to determine whether deficits in memory are global or specific (e.g.,
working memory deficit versus a memory span deficit), whether the stimulus type
impacts memory (e.g., numbers versus letters), whether the mental nature of the
task impacts the student’s performance (e.g., performing math computations with-
out viewing the problem), and/or whether an academic skill deficit (e.g., arithme-
tic difficulties) contributes to observed memory difficulties (e.g., inability to solve
WISC-IV Arithmetic problems involving regrouping). Making these determinations

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 16 APPENDIX I

informs intervention planning in relatively obvious ways. First, if a student is found

to have difficulty with working memory while memory span appears relatively intact,
then a teacher might want to ensure that he or she offers instructions in separate
steps, providing only small pieces of information at a time. Second, if the mental
nature of a task appears to impact performance, then a student might want to be
encouraged to use paper and pencil wherever possible. Finally, if math difficulties
appear to partly explain reduced working memory performance, then intervention
efforts should focus on remediating the academic skill deficit and/or increasing the
student’s automaticity with basic operations and math facts.
The final cluster on which a practitioner can apply testing-of-limits proce-
dures is the Processing Speed cluster. There is one very useful testing-of-limits
modification that a practitioner may want to use—namely, a copying condition
wherein the individual is readministered items for Coding using only symbols or
only numbers so that there is no need to make an association between the two.
When such a modification is used, practitioners are able to obtain more direct
information regarding the student’s copying speed (Holdnack & Weiss, 2006). If
the student’s performance is inadequate on this task, it might suggest that a lower
level skill (e.g., fine motor function) is interfering with the student’s demonstra-
tion of intact higher-order ability (e.g., visual scanning and tracking). As such, a
practitioner may recommend a reduction in motor demands on classroom-based
tasks and/or the provision of additional time or other supports (e.g., use of an
amanuensis, guided notes) when writing demands are present.
It is important to note that the testing-of-limits procedures described require
the practitioner to make modifications independently and to select items based
on initial error analysis. A standardized “testing of limits” is available through the
administration of the processing subtests of the WISC-IV Integrated (Kaplan,
Fein, Kramer, Delis, & Morris, 2004), which is described in detail in Chapter 8.
Use of this measure is a more efficient and reliable method for assessing an in-
dividual’s response to alternative response formats and yields more reliable data
on which to base educational recommendations and/or offer instructional sup-
ports. Notwithstanding, practitioners who do not have immediate access to the
WISC-IV Integrated (Kaplan et al., 2004) can still obtain similar information,
albeit less extensive, by using testing-of-limits procedures.

General Points to Consider in Generating Recommendations

and Planning Interventions

It is important for practitioners to remember that in offering recommendations

or specific methods of intervention, one must consider various forms of data.

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 APPENDIX I 17

The information presented previously is just one piece of a much larger process.
While performance on cognitive measures (e.g., WISC-IV Clinical Clusters) can
be considered and used to inform practitioners’ recommendations, practitioners
should also be familiar with the student’s classroom demands, the instructional
methods that are presently used with a particular student, the availability of mate-
rial resources (e.g., intervention products, support personnel), as well as specific
factors unique to the individual (e.g., likes and dislikes, degree of motivation,
extracurricular schedules, and so forth) (Mascolo, 2008).

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