Pattern of Intelligence in a Psychiatric Sample of Preschoolers

• In Event: Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Topic - Cognitive Processes

Abstract

Introduction.
Psychiatric disorders are a common condition in preschoolers (Lavigne & al., 2009; Wlodarczyk & al., 2017). Children’s intelligence plays an important role in their present and future adaptation (Racz & al., 2017), and various interventions have been developed to promote it (Protzo & al., 2013; Cassidy & al., 2016). Nevertheless, little is known about the intelligence profile of children consulting in psychiatry. A single study of 108 children referred in psychiatry, aged between 3 to 7 years old, revealed a great variability in their cognitive skills (Koushik & al., 2007). About half of children had a profile characterized by discrepancies between verbal and non-verbal competence where some had verbal deficit and others had non-verbal deficit. The remaining children had similar scores between verbal and non-verbal competence. However, knowing that schooling and age influence intelligence development (Brinch & Galloway, 2012; Wang & al., 2016) it is important to describe children’s intelligence profile as they enter the educational system to insure proper interventions. The objective of the present study is to investigate the intelligence’s profile of preschoolers referred in psychiatry in terms of verbal, nonverbal and full IQ.
Method.
Data were extracted from psychological files of children who consulted at an outpatient psychiatry clinic specializing in preschool age between 2000 and 2016. An intellectual assessment was available for 136 children (mean age = 4 years 6 months; 103 boys, 33 girls). Hierarchical cluster analysis using Ward’s method with squared Euclidean distance was employed to organize the data into groups based on homogenous intelligence profile. The data was standardized in Z-score to prevent the influence of variance differences across variables. Next, a discriminant analysis was performed to verify prediction of group membership.
Results.
Full IQ varied from 41 to 128. The analysis of the dendogram shows that the best fit occurred in the four-cluster solution. The first cluster is defined as average non-verbal ability and verbal deficit (AVD) where the verbal IQ is one standard deviation (SD) below the mean and the non-verbal IQ is average. The second cluster is characterized by low abilities (LOW) in all aspects with at least two SD below the mean. The third cluster is represented by average abilities (AVG). Finally, the fourth cluster is characterized by high abilities (HIGH). The discriminant analysis reveals that up to 96.3% of the data is correctly classified into the four clusters.
Conclusion.
High variability in cognitive abilities of preschoolers consulting in psychiatry was found. The four-cluster solution is similar to the cluster solution identified by Koushik and colleagues (2007) except that there is no cluster characterized by nonverbal deficit. Indeed, in all groups, the verbal IQ is at least equal to or below the nonverbal IQ. This suggests that children who consult in psychiatry are at higher risk of presenting difficulties in the verbal sphere. Future studies should examine the link between the children’s cognitive profile and the diagnoses received and should be replicated with a larger sample.

Authors

• Fannie Labelle, Université de Montréal (UdeM)
  Presenting Author

• Karine Jauvin, Université de Montréal (UdeM)
  Non-Presenting Author

• Marie-Julie Béliveau, Université de Montréal (UdeM)
  Non-Presenting Author