Relationships among WAIS subtest scores, patient's premorbid history, and institutionalization.

Divided 40 schizophrenic patients equally among 4 groups on the basis of premorbid history and length of time hospitalized. The WAIS IQ for poor premorbids tended to be higher than for good premorbids, but good premorbids demonstrated significantly higher motor performance (WAIS Digit Symbol and Block Design). There appeared to be a relationship between lower verbal abstractive and decision-making abilities (WAIS Comprehension and Similarities) and length of institutionalization. Results are interpreted as suggesting that, for schizophrenics at least, performance on certain types of intelligence test tasks may be lower for patients who have undergone prolonged institutionalization. (19 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)