St~mnary.-The purpose of this investigation was to examine the WISC verbal 1Q i n terms of subtes: scores for blind and sighted children. It was hypothesized that subtest variability would be sufficiently different to support a significant discriminant function discriminating blind and sighted groups equated on WISC verbal IQ and age. D 2 was significant at the .05 level ( F = 6.38, df = 6/107). Blind and sighzed groups were distinguished by Information, Similarities, and Digit Span. The results indicated chat future studies of the predictive validity of the WISC with blind children should use individual subtests as variables rather than the single verbal IQ measure.The verbal section of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) is widely used, without modification, to assess the intelligence of blind children.As it is currently scored, the test provides a verbal IQ which is derived from the scaled scores on either !ive or six subtests. Since experience has shown that the single global measure of intelligence is often of limited value in the psychological evaluation of many blind children, Bateman (1965) and Hepfinger ( 1962), without specific reference co the WISC, have argued that a profile of abilities would be a practical alternative to a composite IQ score.The purpose of this investigation is to examine the WISC verbal IQ more closely by reference to subtest scores for blind and sighted children. Based on the comments of Bateman and Hepfinger, it is suggested that the subtest variability will be sufficiently different to support a significant discriminant function discriminating blind and sighted groups equated on WISC verbal IQ and age. METHODWISC data were obtained on 167 blind children from residential schools in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Approximately 100 children were ~ested in the Spring of 1965; the remaining WISC forms were obtained from school files. WISC data on sighted children were obtained from a current longitudinal study of the WISC which sampled small, medium, and large population centers in Georgia. ' Blind Ss included in the study relied on Braille, not large print, as an educational medium. Blindness was thereby functionally defined, not ~nferred, from acuity measures. In order : o investigate the relationship berween length of in-'This report is made as a part of the activities of

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Written compositions were obtained from 48 children assigned to three IQ groups. Compositions were scored for definiteness of style according to several of the Flesch criteria. Two of the Flesch criteria, definite words and Formula R, were associated with MA and IQ; further, definite words and Formula R distinguished compositions written by a superior group of children from those written by normal and retarded children, that is, the high IQ group used more general referents, in terms of the Flesch criteria, than the middle- and low-IQ groups. Increases in age were not associated with increases in stylistic generality for the age range sampled. A six-category profile of definite words, reduced according to word function from 16, was analyzed separately.

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