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Reviews and Promotional Material for the Wechsler± Bellevue and Wechsler Memory Scale

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Reviews and Promotional Material for the Wechsler± Bellevue and Wechsler Memory Scale Page 579 APPENDIX 2 Reviews and Promotional Material for the Wechsler± Bellevue and Wechsler Memory Scale David S. Tulsky Kessler Medical Research and Education Corporation University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey In closing the book, material is presented that will help the user gain additional insight about the state of psychological assessment at the time of the release of the original versions of the Wechsler scales. In this appendix, the reader will Wnd `odds and ends' dating back to the 1940's including early promotional material, reprints of the reviews of the scales that appeared in the Mental Measurement Yearbook series (Buros, 1940, 1949), and a faculty biographical sketch that was completed by David Wechsler, in 1942, shortly after the release of the WB I. Taken together, these materials oVer a fascinating glimpse into the Weld in the 1940's and allow us to further deduce how well the tests were received by the Weld and how they advanced clinical practice. The Wechsler±Bellevue Intelligence Scale, Form I (WB I) was published in 1939 and within a short time, it enjoyed enormous popularity in the Weld. The Psychological Corporation published the test material but did not include a users manual in the WB I kit. Instead, the administration instructions for the scale was published separately in a book entitled The Clinical Interpretation of the WAIS-III and WMS-III 579 Copyright 2003, Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved. 580 David S. Tulsky Measurement of Adult Intelligence. Users of the WB I had to purchase this book as it contained all of the verbal items and all of the instructions for how to administer the test. Clearly, the book sold far better than expected as the textbook was reprinted (and revised) two times in the Wrst 5 years of its release. In 1944, the third edition of The Measurement of Adult Intelligence was published. The initial items in Appendix 2 are reprints of both the original catalog listing for the WB I (see Item 1) and the original marketing material for the book (see Item 2). These items are particularly interesting as they aid in making inferences regarding the name of the intelligence scale. As can be seen in the Item 2, the new test is referred to as the ``New Bellevue Scale.'' David Wechsler used this terminology and referred to the test kit by that name throughout the text of his book. The Wrst formal use of Wechsler's name appears to have come from The Psychological Corporation as the initial catalog listing advertises the new test kit as the ``Wechsler±Bellevue Intelligence Scale.'' In authoring a book on the Wechsler scales, George Frank referred to the tests as The Wechsler Enterprise, because there was no dispute about their clinical, historical, and economic value. With the publi- cation of the third editions, a logo for the ``W'' was developed and trade- marked for the WAIS-III and WMS-III demonstrating how valuable the Wechsler ``W'' has become. From these materials, we can infer that it was the original marketing team at The Psychological Corporation that recog- nized the importance of Wechsler's name and helped establish its value. Items 3±5 consist of reviews of both the WB I and the Measurement of Adult Intelligence that have been reprinted in their entirety from the Mental Measurement Yearbook (Buros (ed.), 1940). Corwin Boake (2002) has shown how critical reviews of the Wechsler scales can provide insight into why the the Wechsler Scales became so popular and dominant in the Weld. We have reprinted these key reviews in this Appendix as an eVort of making these reviews easily accessible to readers of this book. From these reviews, we can see that Wechsler's focus of creating a battery to assess intelligence in an adult population served a tremendous need in the Weld. Though he synthesized familiar instruments into a single battery, there was no scale to date that had combined such a variety of tests measuring diverse mental abilities into a single package. The psychometric and norma- tive data surpassed anything that was available at the time and the large, representative co-normed set of scales were reason enough for clinicians to use the new adult scale. For example, Fred Lyman Wells opens his review (see Item 3) declaring that the WB I is ``. by a considerable margin the best available procedure for adults in a clinical setting'' and Grace Kent in her Appendix 2 581 review (see Item 4) points out that a new scale designed for adults ``must strike a responsive cord in every clinical examiner who has had occasion to present the Binet scale to a mature subject of average or superior achieve- ment.'' Kent seemed to understand the importance of the scale and fore- shadowed its popularity. However, her review also reXects the fact that David Wechsler was challenging the Weld to think diVerently about intelli- gence testing and to abandon familiar concepts about scores (e.g., with using the deviation IQ in place of ``mental age'' normative methods). In discussing Wechsler's redeWnition and reconceptualization of the ``Intelligence Quo- tient'', Kent writes that ``the use of the term, as applied to something entirely diVerent from what we understand by it, is likely to be misleading.'' She ends her review by criticizing the fact that Wechsler hadn't provided a table of true `mental age' norms for the ages seven to seventeen and strongly urges him to provide ``norms'' for each subtest individual by age group as Wechsler had because the Bellevue test did not provide enough normative infor- mation to the practicing clinical examiner. Such criticism helps us under- stand how innovative the test was and demonstrates how resistant to change clinicians tended to be and (as Tulsky, Saklofske, & Zhu, Chapter 2 point out) still are today. In hindsight, the Weld did come to embrace the Wechsler method and his scaling became the reference point for years to come. Item 6 contained in this appendix is a reprint of a faculty biographical form that David Wechsler completed by hand in 1942 as part of his appoint- ment to the medical school at New York University. In this biographical sheet, we can also see that Wechsler was experiencing several milestones in his personal life that were occurring at the same time as his professional accomplishments. For instance, Wechsler was married to his second wife in 1939, which is the same year that the WB I was published. Moreover, his Wrst child was born, just one year later, in 1940. More importantly, we can get a glimpse of Wechsler's professional focus, which appears to be on the development of a parallel form of the WB I called the Wechsler Mental Ability Test. At that time, this new test was developed for use in the military during WW II. The Wechsler Mental Ability Test would later be repackaged and published for civilian use as the Wechsler Bellevue Form II. This would only be repackaged again, a few years later, in 1949, as The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. Additionally, Wechsler makes frequent reference to his consultation duties with the US military. Together with statements made by two of his colleagues who worked with him at this time (Personal Communica- tion Eugenia Jaros, New York City, June, 2002; Personal Communication, Arthur Weidner, New York City, June, 2002), the references in the 582 David S. Tulsky biographical sheet provide futher indication that David Wechsler was a patriotic American citizen who was proud of his involvement in the US military. In collaboration with Dr. Weidner (see item 7), Wechsler de- veloped a screening test to determine who was likely to ``break down'' during military service and he furthered his work on emotionality and psychogalvanic responses (that he had performed earlier for his dissertation). Quite clearly, this was an incredibly active period for David Wechsler. Item 8, the Wnal piece to be included in this Appendix, is the review of the Wechsler Memory Scale that has been reprinted from Oscar Buro's Third Mental Measurement Yearbook from 1949. Kate Levine Kogan reviewed the scale and was quite positive by the addition of a measure of memory function ``to available clinical techniques.'' She points out that a strength is that the scale could be used in conjunction with the Wechsler Bellevue and embraces the clinical utility of the new scale. At the same time, it appears that a clinical memory test was a novel idea in the mid-1940's and the extent of the clinical applications were still unknown. Appendix 2 583 ITEM I±ORIGINAL PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT FORTHE WECHSLER BELLEVUE SCALE. REPRINTED FROM THE 1939 PRODUCT CATALOG FROM THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CORPORATION Image is from D.S. Tulsky's personal collection, Permission to reproduce was granted by The Psychological Corporation-a Harcourt Assessment Company. 584 David S. Tulsky ITEM 2±ORIGINAL PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE WILLIAMS & WILKINS COMPANY CIRCA 1939 Appendix 2 585 586 David S. Tulsky Images of the Product Announcement were provided courtesy of the division of archives and special collections of the City College of the City University of New York. Permission to reproduce was granted by the Lippincott, Williams, & Wilkins Company. Appendix 2 587 ITEM 3±ORIGINAL REVIEWS OF THE WECHSLER±BELLEVUE INTELLIGENCE SCALE F. L. Wells, Psychologist, Department of Hygiene, Harvard University This series is by a considerable margin the best available procedure for adults, in a clinical setting. The writer will here discuss it from the standpoint not of general organization, which may be left to reviews of Wechsler's book, but of technical matters having special concern for a workaday user, as the writer has for some time had the good fortune to be.
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