You are holding an evaluation full of numbers, and the Individual Profile is asking you for some of them. This page explains what a standard score is, which number to type in, and exactly where to find it on your report.
A standard score compares one person to a large group of people the same age. The scale is built so that 100 is exactly average. The further a score sits from 100, in either direction, the more unusual it is.
Standard scores on a cognitive evaluation run from about 40 to 160. They are not percentages. A score of 85 does not mean the child got 85% of the questions right.
Line every person up by score and the shape is a bell. Most cluster in the middle. The dashed lines sit at 70, 85, 115 and 130, fifteen points apart. Fifteen points is one standard deviation.
About 68 out of every 100 people score between 85 and 115.
That is why the average band is so wide. Two children can score 88 and 112, look nothing alike at the kitchen table, and both be squarely average.
The percentile tells you how many people out of a hundred scored at or below that number.
| Standard Score | Percentile | In Plain Language | Zone |
|---|---|---|---|
| 130 | 98th | Higher than about 98 of 100 people | Strength |
| 120 | 91st | Higher than about 91 of 100 people | Strength |
| 115 | 84th | Top edge of the average band | Strength |
| 110 | 75th | Higher than about 3 of every 4 people | Average |
| 100 | 50th | Right in the middle | Average |
| 90 | 25th | Lower than about 3 of every 4 people | Average |
| 85 | 16th | Bottom edge of the average band, and still intact | Strength |
| 84 | 14th | One point down, and this is where it slides | Weakness |
| 80 | 9th | Higher than about 9 of 100 people | Weakness |
| 70 | 2nd | Higher than about 2 of 100 people | Weakness |
The words are not standardized. Most reports attach a descriptive term to each score, but the terms differ from test to test and publisher to publisher. One report may call an 85 Low Average and another may call it something else. Use the descriptive terms in your own report for the correct wording, and look for the key or legend that defines them.
An 85 is still an 85 whatever it is called. The number and the percentile do not move. Only the vocabulary does. One common set, offered as an example and not as the authority: 130 and above Very Superior, 120 to 129 Superior, 110 to 119 High Average, 90 to 109 Average, 80 to 89 Low Average, 70 to 79 Below Average, below 70 Extremely Low.
Buckets and Barrels™ does not test anyone. The scores on your report came from a formal evaluation, given and written up by a qualified professional. This tool does not assess, score, or diagnose. What it does is give you a way to read what is already there. It converts those cluster scores into a pattern of strengths and weaknesses you can see.
There are two roads to that same pattern. One starts with scores from an evaluation. The other, The Fill Finder Questionnaire, starts with what you observe at the kitchen table and uses no scores at all. Both end at a pattern of strengths and weaknesses. Neither one is an assessment.
An evaluation report carries several kinds of numbers, and only one kind belongs in the Individual Profile.
Use the cluster, index, or composite standard scores. A cluster bundles two or more subtests that measure the same ability, working memory or fluid reasoning for example, and combines them into one standard score. Those are the buckets-and-barrels numbers. One per vessel.
Do not enter these. Subtest scaled scores, which run 1 to 19 and are usually in a long list. Behavior-rating T scores. Percentile ranks. Age equivalents or grade equivalents. Raw scores. Classroom grades. Questionnaire results.
And do not enter the one big number at the top. Every battery prints an overall summary score. It averages everything at once, which is the opposite of what this is for. The whole point here is the pattern across the vessels, not one number, so that score has no box.
And do not convert or combine anything yourself. If you are unsure which number to use, ask the professional who prepared the report. That is a fair question and they should be glad you asked.
The names on the report are already the ability names.
| Comprehension-Knowledge | → Gc, the Gc barrel |
| Fluid Reasoning | → Gf, the Gf barrel |
| Working Memory, printed as Short-Term Working Memory on the WJ-IV | → Gwm |
| Cognitive Processing Speed | → Gs |
| Long-Term Retrieval | → Glr |
| Visual Processing | → Gv |
| Auditory Processing | → Ga |
Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fifth Edition. The report uses index names.
| VCI, Verbal Comprehension | → Gc |
| FRI, Fluid Reasoning | → Gf |
| VSI, Visual Spatial | → Gv |
| WMI, Working Memory | → Gwm |
| PSI, Processing Speed | → Gs |
The WISC-V does not give you Long-Term Retrieval. There is a separate set of subtests that can produce it, but it is rarely administered. If it is not on your report, leave the box blank. That is normal.
Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence, Fourth Edition. Ages 2:6 to 7:7.
| VCI, Verbal Comprehension | → Gc |
| FRI, Fluid Reasoning | → Gf |
| VSI, Visual Spatial | → Gv |
| WMI, Working Memory | → Gwm |
| PSI, Processing Speed | → Gs |
Children under 4:0 do not receive FRI or PSI scores. Leave those blank for the little ones. The WPPSI-IV does not measure Long-Term Retrieval.
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Fourth Edition. Ages 16 to 90.
| VCI, Verbal Comprehension | → Gc |
| PRI, Perceptual Reasoning | → Gf |
| PRI, Perceptual Reasoning | → Gv, the same number again |
| WMI, Working Memory | → Gwm |
| PSI, Processing Speed | → Gs |
The WAIS-IV reports one PRI score covering both Fluid Reasoning and Visual Processing, so the same number goes in both boxes unless a supplemental measure separated them. When it does, the profile is showing you one number twice, not two separate findings. The WAIS-IV does not measure Long-Term Retrieval.
Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, Second Edition, Normative Update. It uses its own scale names.
| Knowledge | → Gc |
| Planning | → Gf |
| Simultaneous | → Gv |
| Sequential | → Gwm, called Gsm on this test |
| Learning | → Glr |
The KABC-II NU does not measure Processing Speed. Leave Gs blank unless you have it from another measure. The FCI is a summary score, not a vessel.
Every score carries a confidence band. A single point of difference between two scores is noise, not a finding.
Average means typical. It is not a C. Roughly two thirds of people are average on any given ability, including plenty who are doing well in demanding work.
One low score explains very little. What explains a great deal is a pattern: which vessels run low, which run high, and what the low ones are being asked to carry at the same time.
Where Buckets and Barrels™ picks up. A standard score tells you how full one vessel is compared to other people the same age. It does not tell you what happens when several demands land on the low ones at once. That is what the thinking system is for.
The volume of a vessel is steady. What changes is the demand pouring into it. When the demand outruns what the connected system can carry, the water slows at a bottleneck, pressure builds, and you see it as behavior. The behavior is the pressure gauge.
This page is educational. It explains how scores are reported and which ones the Individual Profile uses. It does not interpret any individual evaluation, diagnose a condition, or determine eligibility for services. Questions about a report belong with the qualified professional who prepared it.