Intellectual giftedness in elderly people assessed by Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale – Fourth Edition: what specific features?

ABSTRACT

The aim of the paper was to study the intellectual profile of 94 gifted elders aged 60–90 years old with an IQ equal to or higher than 130 on at least one of the four primary indexes of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale – Fourth Edition. Their performances in the 15 subtests, in the Full Scale Intelligence Quotient, in the primary, supplementary and Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory Indexes, were analyzed. This group exhibited a significantly higher level of performance in all subtests and indexes than the control group matched for gender, age, and education. The differences between the two groups appear higher for the Matrix reasoning and Visual puzzle subtests. Additionally, in the gifted group the strengths seem to be represented more by Processing Speed and Perceptual Reasoning Indexes, in the control group are Comprehension Verbal and Working Memory Indexes. Moreover, gifted elders showed lower discrepancies across intellectual domains. These data provide evidence that, as the difference between the gifted group and the control group revealed in the present study is more due to processing speed, this dimension, which normaly is most affected by aging, on the contrary, is maintained/increased as a strength in the gifted elderly group.

Acknowledgments

The authors discussed the contents of this article together. Lina Pezzuti, Margherita Lang and Clara Michelotti conceptualized the study elaborated on the research design and hypotheses, and contributed to the interpretation of research findings. Lina Pezzuti collected data. Lina Pezzuti and James Dawe devised the methodological content, analyzed the data, and contributed to the interpretation of research findings. Lina Pezzuti, Margherita Lang, Clara Michelotti and James Dawe contributed to writing and editing of this paper and collected the references, and wrote the final version of this paper. The research has been approved by the ethical committee of the Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, and Health Studies of the Faculty of Medicine and Psychology of the Sapienza University of Rome. We confirm that we have not conflict of interest in this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).