The difference (D) between a person's Verbal IQ (VIQ) and Performance IQ (PIQ) has for some time been considered clinically meaningful ( Kaufman, 1976 , 1979 ; Matarazzo, 1990 , 1991 ; Matarazzo & Herman, 1985 ; Sattler, 1982 ; Wechsler, 1984 ). Particularly useful is information about the degree to which a difference (D) between scores is “abnormal” (i.e., deviant in a standardization group) as opposed to simply “reliable” (i.e., indicative of a true score difference) ( Mittenberg, Thompson, & Schwartz, 1991 ; Silverstein, 1981 ; Payne & Jones, 1957 ). Payne and Jones (1957) proposed a formula to identify “abnormal” differences, which has been used extensively in the literature, and which has generally yielded good approximations to empirically determined “abnormal” differences ( Silverstein, 1985 ; Matarazzo & Herman, 1985 ). However applications of this formula have not taken into account the dependence (demonstrated by Kaufman, 1976 , 1979 , and Matarazzo & Herman, 1985 ) of Ds on Full Scale IQs (FSIQs). This has led to overestimation of “abnormality” of Ds of high FSIQ children, and underestimation of “abnormality” of Ds of low FSIQ children. This article presents a formula for identification of abnormal WISC-R Ds, which overcomes these problems, by explicitly taking into account the dependence of Ds on FSIQs.
