PARSIMONIOUS PREDICTION OF WECHSLER MEMORY SCALE REVISED MEMORY INDEXES

The Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R; D. Wechsler, 1987) represent s a significant improvement over the original WMS (D. Wechsler, 1945). However, its usefulness is diminished by the increased administration time, and the incremental validity of the new subtests is questionabl e. Using a sample of 308 patients referred for neuropsychological eval uation, two regression equations were developed to predict weighted ra w score sums for General Memory (GM) and Delayed Recall (DR), using th e WMS-R analogs of 5 subtests from the original WMS. Predicted scores were within +/-6 points of actual performance for 92% of the sample fo r GM and for 96% of the sample for DR. Application of these equations to the WMS-R standardization sample subtest means produced estimated G M indices ranging from 96 to 103 and estimated DR indices ranging from 98 to 101 across age groups. These regression equations may prove use ful for reducing WMS-R administration time without an appreciable decl ine in accuracy.