Concurrent validity of three WAIS—R short forms in psychiatric inpatients.

Several investigators have proposed short forms of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Revised (WAIS—R) to provide more cost-effective estimates of intellectual ability. The present study compared the concurrent validity of A. B. Silverstein's (1982) 2-subtest, Doppelt's (1956) 4-subtest, and L. C. Ward's (1990) 7-subtest short forms in predicting the WAIS—R Full Scale IQs of 304 psychiatric inpatients. Although Full Scale IQs were highly correlated with 2- and 4-subtest estimates, a significantly higher correlation was obtained with the 7-subtest short form. Errors in predicted IQ were smallest for the 7-subtest form. The results support previous research that found better predictive accuracy for the 7-subtest short form than for the 2- and 4-subtest methods, despite little additional cost in administration time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)