Clinical Utility of Demographically Corrected WAIS-III Subtest Scores After Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract

The present study explored the diagnostic accuracy of demographically corrected norms for the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale–Third Edition (WAIS-III) in a diverse sample of 57 patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and a matched group of 61 pseudoneurologic controls. The use of demographic corrections did not significantly improve the sensitivity or specificity of WAIS-III subtest scores to TBI relative to traditional age-corrected norms. Overall classification rates were quite good for both normative systems. Although the demographic corrections attenuate ethnicity differences on the subtest scores of TBI patients, the updated norms are no more or less beneficial than traditional age-corrected norms for neurodiagnostic purposes.

Keywords:

• WAIS-III
• Traumatic brain injury
• Demographic norms