Mayo's Older Americans Normative Studies: Age- and IQ-Adjusted Norms for the Boston Naming Test, the MAE Token Test, and the Judgment of Line Orientation Test

ABSTRACT

Although many extant normative data sets for standardized neuropsychometric instruments feature adjustments for subject variables, there are reasons to believe that improvements in interpretive accuracy that result from such adjustments are less than optimal. In particular, several theoretical considerations suggest that years of formal education may be less closely related to test performances than is general intellectual functioning. In this first of four reanalyses of results from the Mayo Clinic's Older Americans Normative Studies (MOANS) databases, age-adjusted scores on the Boston Naming Test, the MAE Token Test, and the Judgment of Line Orientation Test were indeed found to be more strongly associated with Mayo Age-adjusted WAIS-R Full Scale IQ scores (rs = .608, .473, and .502, respectively) than with education (rs = .310, .306, and .236, respectively) for healthy older examinees (56–99 years). Consistent with the remarks of Dodrill (1997 1999), these correlations generally decreased at higher levels of intelligence. The magnitude and pattern of such declines varied across the three tests, however, suggesting that IQ-test score associations must be empirically determined rather than assumed to be linear. Tables of Age- and IQ-Adjusted percentile equivalents of MOANS Age-adjusted BNT, Token Test, and JLO scaled scores are presented for eleven age ranges and seven IQ ranges. The article concludes with a discussion of factors that may underlie observed relations among age, intelligence, and neuropsychometric test performances.

Notes

¹The distribution of such processes is unlikely to be truly random across education groups, however, because higher IQ individuals indeed tend to have more education than lower IQ individuals (Stern, 2002). According to Stern, the former enjoy greater “brain reserve capacity” (i.e., more synaptic connections among neurons) and “cognitive reserve” (i.e., ability to utilize alternative strategies for coping with cognitive tasks) than the latter, and this may result in better preservation of neurocognitive capacities and functional skills in the face of dementia and other illnesses. In fact, when contemplating the influence of intelligence on neuropsychologic test performances in older persons, one is implicitly taking into account not only ability to successfully complete cognitively challenging activities but also capacity to withstand the physical deterioration that accompanies aging. This differs from the situation that is encountered with younger examinees, and it is probably inadequately addressed by non-performance-based education adjustments.

²Interestingly, Lindgren and Benton (1980) found that both boys and girls experienced a slight decline in JLO scores around the age of 10, at a time when visual analysis of unfamiliar faces is believed to evolve from a detail-oriented process to a configural process.

Note. BNT = Boston Naming Test; MAE = Multilingual Aphasia Examination; JLO = Judgment of Line Orientation Test.

^a The reader is advised that these age ranges do not coincide with the age ranges or cell sizes that appear in the normative data tables that appear below.

^b “Non-Caucasian” includes African American, Latino, Canadian, and Western European.

³Participants’ VIQ scores were more strongly associated with their BNT and Token Test scores and their PIQ scores were more closely related to their JLO scores (data not reported here). Although these findings are consistent with the very general—and imperfect—characterization of Verbal and Performance subtests as involving linguistic functions and visually based problem-solving, respectively, the actual differences for VIQ and PIQ scores were minimal for the BNT and JLO (1.8% and 3.7% discrepancies in shared variance, respectively).

Note. MOANS = Mayo's Older Americans Normative Studies; BNT = Boston Naming Test; MAE = Multilingual Aphasia Examination; JLO = Judgment of Line Orientation Test; FSIQ = Full Scale IQ; VIQ = Verbal IQ; PIQ = Performance IQ.

^a p < .01.

Note. MOANS = Mayo's Older Americans Normative Studies; BNT = Boston Naming Test; MAE = Multilingual Aphasia Examination; JLO = Judgment of Line Orientation Test; FSIQ = Full Scale IQ; VIQ = Verbal IQ; PIQ = Performance IQ.

Note. BNT = Boston Naming Test; MAE = Multilingual Aphasia Examination; JLO = Judgment of Line Orientation Test; FSIQ = Full Scale IQ.

^a To use norms, find table that corresponds to examinee's age, locate appropriate test section, enter appropriate FSIQ column, and determine percentile equivalent of examinee's raw score or age-adjusted MOANS scaled score (cf. Ivnik, et al., 1996, TCN, 10, 262–278).

Note. BNT = Boston Naming Test; MAE = Multilingual Aphasia Examination; JLO = Judgment of Line Orientation Test; FSIQ = Full Scale IQ.

^a To use norms, find table that corresponds to examinee's age, locate appropriate test section, enter appropriate FSIQ column, and determine percentile equivalent of examinee's raw score or age-adjusted MOANS scaled score (cf. Ivnik, et al., 1996, TCN, 10, 262–278).

Note. BNT = Boston Naming Test; MAE = Multilingual Aphasia Examination; JLO = Judgment of Line Orientation Test; FSIQ = Full Scale IQ.

^a To use norms, find table that corresponds to examinee's age, locate appropriate test section, enter appropriate FSIQ column, and determine percentile equivalent of examinee's raw score or age-adjusted MOANS scaled score (cf. Ivnik, et al., 1996, TCN, 10, 262–278).

Note. BNT = Boston Naming Test; MAE = Multilingual Aphasia Examination; JLO = Judgment of Line Orientation Test; FSIQ = Full Scale IQ.

^a To use norms, find table that corresponds to examinee's age, locate appropriate test section, enter appropriate FSIQ column, and determine percentile equivalent of examinee's raw score or age-adjusted MOANS scaled score (cf. Ivnik, et al., 1996, TCN, 10, 262–278).

Note. BNT = Boston Naming Test; MAE = Multilingual Aphasia Examination; JLO = Judgment of Line Orientation Test; FSIQ = Full Scale IQ.

^aTo use norms, find table that corresponds to examinee's age, locate appropriate test section, enter appropriate FSIQ column, and determine percentile equivalent of examinee's raw score or Age-adjusted MOANS scaled score (cf. Ivnik, et al., 1996, TCN, 10, 262–278).

Note. BNT = Boston Naming Test; MAE = Multilingual Aphasia Examination; JLO = Judgment of Line Orientation Test; FSIQ = Full Scale IQ.

^a To use norms, find table that corresponds to examinee's age, locate appropriate test section, enter appropriate FSIQ column, and determine percentile equivalent of examinee's raw score or age-adjusted MOANS scaled score (cf. Ivnik, et al., 1996, TCN, 10, 262–278).

Note. BNT = Boston Naming Test; MAE = Multilingual Aphasia Examination; JLO = Judgment of Line Orientation Test; FSIQ = Full Scale IQ.

^a To use norms, find table that corresponds to examinee's age, locate appropriate test section, enter appropriate FSIQ column, and determine percentile equivalent of examinee's raw score or age-adjusted MOANS scaled score (cf. Ivnik, et al., 1996, TCN, 10, 262–278).

Note. BNT = Boston Naming Test; MAE = Multilingual Aphasia Examination; JLO = Judgment of Line Orientation Test; FSIQ = Full Scale IQ.

^a To use norms, find table that corresponds to examinee's age, locate appropriate test section, enter appropriate FSIQ column, and determine percentile equivalent of examinee's raw score or age-adjusted MOANS scaled score (cf. Ivnik, et al., 1996, TCN, 10, 262–278).

Note. BNT = Boston Naming Test; MAE = Multilingual Aphasia Examination; JLO = Judgment of Line Orientation Test; FSIQ = Full Scale IQ.

^a To use norms, find table that corresponds to examinee's age, locate appropriate test section, enter appropriate FSIQ column, and determine percentile equivalent of examinee's raw score or age-adjusted MOANS scaled score (cf. Ivnik, et al., 1996, TCN, 10, 262–278).

Note. BNT = Boston Naming Test; MAE = Multilingual Aphasia Examination; JLO = Judgment of Line Orientation Test; FSIQ = Full Scale IQ.

^a To use norms, find table that corresponds to examinee's age, locate appropriate test section, enter appropriate FSIQ column, and determine percentile equivalent of examinee's raw score or age-adjusted MOANS scaled score (cf. Ivnik, et al., 1996, TCN, 10, 262–278).

Note. BNT = Boston Naming Test; MAE = Multilingual Aphasia Examination; JLO = Judgment of Line Orientation Test; FSIQ = Full Scale IQ.

^a To use norms, find table that corresponds to examinee's age, locate appropriate test section, enter appropriate FSIQ column, and determine percentile equivalent of examinee's raw score or age-adjusted MOANS scaled score (cf. Ivnik, et al., 1996, TCN, 10, 262–278).

⁴This problem is not unique to this area of inquiry, however. In the case of research on Alzheimer's disease, for example, investigators who attempt to summarize “severity of dementia”—whether via a brief test such as the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE; Folstein, Folstein, & McHugh, 1975) or by means of a more comprehensive instrument such as the Mattis Dementia Rating Scale (DRS; Mattis, 1988)—simply sample a variety of cognitive domains that have been found to be affected by the illness. They may then form groups of mildly and moderately demented patients on the basis of MMSE or DRS scores and conduct in-depth studies of memory or other abilities. Although such studies may lead to the conclusion that certain capacities are more compromised in more demented individuals, it may be precisely because those capacities were found to be worse on the MMSE or the DRS that the moderately demented group was separated from the mildly demented group in the first place.