Australian Journal of Educational & Developmental Psychology

Fifty-nine special needs adolescents [mild intellectual disability (n=16, 9 males and 7 females); moderate intellectual disability (n=33, 14 males and 19 females) and, learning disability (n=10, 7 males and 3 females) aged 16-19 years were administered the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale – Third edition (WAIS-III) to examine how comparable the profiles of Australian special needs adolescents were (a) to each other and (b) to those of their US counterparts. ANOVA and t-test analyses suggested differences among the profiles of the special needs groups. As the severity of the intellectual disability increased IQ scores were lowered progressively and the decreases were apparent across in a wider range of intelligence measures. Cross-cultural differences among the profiles were also evident with Australian developmentally disabled adolescents scoring higher and Australian learning disabled adolescents scoring lower than their US counterparts did respectively.