IS THE VOCABULARY A RELIABLE INDICATOR OF PREMORBID INTELLECT

The author is concerned with the problem of Vocabulary subtest in WAIS -R as an indicator of pathological deterioration and premorbid intelle ct. An investigation of hospitalized psychiatric patients (N=39) with psychologically diagnosed organic deterioration compared with comparat ive set of psychiatric patients without diagnosed organic deterioratio n of intellect (N=38) was carried out. The deterioration was set on th e basis of WAIS-R and other psychological methods; the vocabulary scat ter and index of deterioration were calculated later. Patients were eq ualized as to the age and sex, most of them being psychotic patients. The results showed that the vocabulary scatter discriminated between t he groups best after the total IQ in WAIS-R. Issuing from the research , it can be stated that the vocabulary scatter in psychiatric patients has the same validity as the comparison of the performance and verbal intellect. The vocabulary scatter did not differentiate between patie nts with deterioration and without deterioration with lower education; significant differences were found, however, between the subjects wit h higher education, where it proved to be the best differentiating mea sure of deterioration - regarding the values of total, performance and verbal IQ. In subjects with different level of education, the classic al index of deterioration had the same trend as the vocabulary scatter .