Diagnostic Utility of the Bannatyne WISC‐III Pattern
Abstract
Regrouping Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children‐Third Edition (WISC‐III) subtests into Bannatyne's spatial, conceptual, and sequential patterns has been thought by many to identify children with learning disabilities (LD). This study investigated the prevalence and diagnostic utility of WISC‐III Bannatyne patterns by comparing 1,302 children with LD to 2,158 children in the WISC‐III normative sample. Further analysis was conducted on a subsample of students with specific reading disabilities. Results indicated that the presence of the Bannatyne WISC‐III pattern would not lead to decisions that are useful in differentiating children with LD from children without LD. For example, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, measured by the area under the curve (AUC), indicated that the Bannatyne WISC‐III pattern exhibited low diagnostic utility (AUC = 0.54–0.55). Due to its inaccuracy, use of the Bannatyne WISC‐III pattern is not recommended.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Smith and Watkins (2004) reported similar percentages of the Bannatyne pattern in their sample of children with DD and LD.
“Smith and Watkins (2004) also reported similar percentages in their sample of children with DD and LD.”
From WISC-III Cognitive Profiles in Children with ADHD: Specific Cognitive Impairments and Diagnostic Utility (2019) · cites this paper as Smith and Watkins (2004)
Cites
Diagnosing Learning Disabilities and Writing Remedial Prescriptions
Bannatyne, A. (1968) · Journal of Learning Disabilities · doi:10.1177/002221946800100403 · Cited by 130 · see citing works
Psychological tests and clinical discriminations: Beginning to address the base rate problem
Elwood, R. W. (1993) · Clinical Psychology Review · doi:10.1016/0272-7358(93)90012-b · Cited by 94 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Poletti, M. (2016) · Journal of Learning Disabilities · doi:10.1177/0022219414555416 · Cited by 61 · see citing works
Moura, O., Costa, P., & Simões, M. R. (2019) · The Journal of General Psychology · doi:10.1080/00221309.2018.1561410 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
McGill, R. J., Dombrowski, S. C., & Canivez, G. L. (2025) · Psychology in the Schools · doi:10.1002/pits.23457 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
“…to some extent, prior attempts to group selected Wechsler subtests into unique profile configurations that promise to offer diagnostic insight for SLD identification (Smith and Watkins 2004) or Autism identification (Styck et al. 2019) which subsequent research studies have failed to support.”
- Authors
- Smith, C. B., & Watkins, M. W.
- Affiliations
- Pennsylvania State University (US)
- Venue
- Learning Disabilities Research & Practice
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2004-01-08
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 49-56
- ISSN
- 0938-8982 (ISSN-L)
- 1540-5826
- OpenAlex
- W2139503129
- Cited by
- 30
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 1 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 1.43
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Learning Disabilities Research and Practice (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology › Developmental and Educational Neuropsychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Keywords
- WISC-III, learning disabilities, diagnostic value, specific reading disability, children, receiver operating characteristic, diagnostic accuracy
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
