AbstractThe purpose of this study was to investigate the similarity in the pattern of strengths and weaknesses between those students evaluated and placed in special education programs and those students evaluated and not placed in special education programs. The two groups were compared on the basis of 18 composite scale scores obtained from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children‐Revised (WISC‐R). The sample consisted of 585 students in grades 1–6 located in eastern Kentucky schools. A test for parallelism of the two profiles was conducted with a multiple‐profile analysis using a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The results revealed that the two profiles were parallel. The authors concluded that the two groups have a similar pattern of relative strengths and wea