A comparison of nine WAIS-R short forms in individuals with mild to severetraumatic brain injury

Scores from nine WAIS-R short forms were calculated for a sample of 75 adul ts with mild to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). Although all nine of t he short forms were significantly correlated with the WAIS-R Full Scale IQ, three of the short forms (Vocabulary-Block Design; Vocabulary-Block Design -Arithmetic-Similarities; Vocabulary-Arithmetic-Picture Arrangement-Block D esign) significantly overestimated the WAIS-R IQ and thus may be inappropri ate to use with this population. The remaining six short forms did not diff er significantly from the WAIS-R Full Scale IQ. Among these six, Ward's sev en-subtest short form appeared to exhibit the least variability in predicti ng the WAIS-R Full Scale IQ. Information is presented and discussed regardi ng the absolute difference scores between short form IQ estimates and the W AIS-R as well as the proportion of short forms which significantly under- a nd overestimate the Full Scale IQ.