Understanding Psychoeducational Testing Terms: Verbal Comprehension
What is Verbal Comprehension?
Verbal Comprehension Skills are a likely and common cognitive area assessed during your child’s comprehensive psychoeducational or neurodevelopmental evaluation. Why? Verbal Comprehension is a foundational and important cognitive process that aids in your child’s ability to understand and apply word knowledge and it is particularly relevant to nearly all aspects of your child’s academic, socio-emotional, and day-t0-day interactions.
To reduce the psychological jargon or lengthy explanations about broad and narrow abilities about intelligence (but if your interested, your child’s psychologist would be happy to share…), here are a few ways to understand your child’s Verbal Comprehension performance scores, as well as the implications it may have on their functioning in home, school, and in the community.
What is the Verbal Comprehension Index on the WISC-V?
The Verbal Comprehension Index on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children- Fifth Edition (WISC-V) provides a snapshot of your child’s ability to understand, access, and apply word knowledge. More specifically, it is your child’s ability to verbalize meaningful concepts and express their knowledge effectively using words.
What are Verbal Comprehension Skills?
In general, Verbal Comprehension skills aid in your child’s ability to understand and apply word knowledge in their day-to-day interactions. You can consider it your child’s “background knowledge” and their ability to verbalize it. Verbal Comprehension is part of a larger crystalized aspect of intelligence, meaning it is the breadth and depth of a person’s acquired knowledge of a culture and the effective application of this knowledge. As it is an individual’s acquired knowledge, there are many factors that can influence your child’s performance on Verbal Comprehension tasks, including previous learning experiences, enriching environments, culture, as well as other aspects of language/cognitive functions, including expressive and receptive skills.
How does a psychologist assess Verbal Comprehension Skills?
Psychologists or trained examiners can use a range of tools to assess your child’s Verbal Comprehension skills. Best practice typically includes use of several standardized tools. Some of the most common standardized cognitive tools used in the field include the Wechsler Intelligence Tests, such as the WPPSI-IV (ages 3-7), WISC-V (ages 6-16), and the WAIS-IV (ages 16-90), as well as the Woodcock Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities (WJ-IV Cog). There are many factors involved in creating a testing plan, as well as the tools used, which are related to your examiners specialty, training, and the referral question. Verbal Comprehension skills can also be examined in more depth through common Speech and Language Evaluation tools or other psychological instruments.
What do Verbal Comprehension scores in the “Average Range” mean?
If your child performs in the Average range, this demonstrates evidence that they have an appropriate depth and breadth of knowledge. They can communicate and express their ideas and knowledge just like that of many other's their age and development, which can contribute to their academic mastery. Without any other barriers or learning difficulties, these children generally have the capacity to learn efficiently in school and express their ideas.
What do Verbal Comprehension scores above the “Average Range” mean?
High Verbal Comprehension performance scores typically encompass a child who is highly verbal and someone who enjoys coming up with new words, learning facts, and sharing their knowledge. Your child may communicate and express their ideas well, with a breadth and depth of knowledge about topics, and may appear older than their age in terms of conversational knowledge of facts. Successful individuals on the popular game show "Jeopardy!” likely have high Verbal Comprehension, amongst other skills, due to their impressive breadth and depth of knowledge. Sometimes, children with high Verbal Comprehension skills may struggle to condense their ideas, due to their breadth of knowledge, however this may not always be the case.
What do Verbal Comprehension scores below the “Average Range” mean?
Consistently low Verbal Comprehension performance scores may indicate poorly or underdeveloped verbal skills through the lens of standardized assessment. This may encompass a child who struggles to express their ideas concisely or struggles with word knowledge. Since Verbal Comprehension skills are highly utilized in school settings, they may struggle with aspects of learning in school, such as poor reading, difficulties finding words/vocabulary to express their ideas or knowledge, or frustration with writing. There can be many factors that influence Verbal Comprehension performance, including underlying neurodevelopmental weaknesses, anxiety, and other cultural implications/factors so it is important to talk more in-depth with the examiner.
How do Verbal Comprehension Skills affect learning?
Verbal Comprehension skills (and the tools that assess them) are impacted by outside learning/enrichment opportunities, as well as other cultural implications that are not typically captured during standardized testing. Remember, Verbal Comprehension taps into “acquired” knowledge. Thus, it is important to think beyond a score when examining Verbal Comprehension skills. Verbal Comprehension aids in your child’s ability to understand, utilize, and express facts, thus it can have implications in nearly all school settings. Research supports that Verbal Comprehension skills are highly linked to reading, reading comprehension, writing, math problem solving, and any class where utilizing your knowledge through words is of high importance towards success. Thus, if your child has low Verbal Comprehension skills, it is important to provide them with additional opportunities to build those skills, as well as support to express their knowledge in more efficient ways. For more information about special education in schools, check out this blog.
What are some ways to enhance my child’s Verbal Comprehension Skills?
Improve enrichment and learning opportunities based on your child’s interests. If reading is not a preferred activity of interest, expose your child to written content based on topics of interest and expand to other general ideas.
Improve reading opportunities (written text or spoken) based on interests. If your child is old enough to read independently, help them find books or books on tape related to topics they enjoy. If you read to your child, improve frequency and include reading as part of a regular routine (e.g., bedtime).
Improve vocabulary: Do a “word of the day” that helps your child gradually improve their knowledge of words related to school topics or themes.
Help your child come up with questions about the text you are reading and keep it engaging.
Use context clues to support your child’s reading. Help them identify clues through pictures an how it relates to what they are reading.
Encourage your child to dictate or write out “summaries” about what they read or learned. If reading for pleasure, ask them questions about what they learned or have general conversations about topics.
Break reading into smaller chunks. Reading involves many cognitive processes other than verbal comprehension, including executive functioning (attention, tracking). Chunking long reading assignments into smaller, more manageable parts, can help improve focus and attention to the quality, rather than quantity.
Keep it fun. There are many family friendly games that tap into Verbal Comprehension skills. Any individual or family game that involves “acting out” or guessing words, topics/themes helps your child learn, acquire, and express their knowledge in a multi-sensory, fun, and non-threatening way. Some family friendly options include Charades!, Pictionary, Heads Up!, or Catch Phrase.
Have questions or looking to learn more information? Contact Dr. Bobal today!