Revising a Standard: an Evaluation of the Origin and Development of the WAIS-III
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CHAPTER 2 Revising a Standard: An Evaluation of the Origin and Development of the WAIS-III David S. Tulsky Kessler Medical Rehabilitation Research and Education Corporation University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey Donald H. Saklofske University of Saskatchewan and Jianjun Zhu The Psychological Corporation The Wechsler Bellevue Intelligence Scale was published in 1939, and since the initial publication, the test has been revised three times: Wechser Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS, Wechsler, 1955), The Wechsler Adult Intelli- gence ScaleÐRevised (WAIS-R; Wechsler, 1981a), and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Third Edition (WAIS-III, Wechsler, 1997a). This chapter focuses mainly on the most recent revision, although at the end of the chapter a review of each subtest and its origins is presented. The development of the WAIS-III began oYcially in November, 1992, and marked the Wrst revision of the adult test to be undertaken following David Wechsler's death in 1981. A project team was formed by the pub- lisher, The Psychological Corporation, that included the authors of this chapter. SpeciWcally, Tulsky and Zhu were the project directors who led the revision process. Saklofske interfaced with the revision team through his work as project director of WAIS-III Canadian standardization project. These experiences made the authors intimately familiar with the WAIS-III and the revision process leading to its publication. Clinical Interpretation of the WAIS-III and WMS-III 43 Copyright 2003, Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved. 44 David S. Tulsky et al. WHY A REVISION WAS NECESSARY The WAIS-R was among the most frequently used tests for assessing the cognitive abilities of adults (see Archer, Maruish, Imhof, & Piotrowski, 1991; Butler, RetzlaV, & Vanderploeg, 1991; Camara, Nathan, & Puente, 2000; Harrison, Kaufman, Hickman, & Kaufman, 1988; Lees-Haley, Smith, Williams, & Dunn, 1996; Piotrowski & Keller, 1989; Watkins, Campbell, & McGregor, 1988). Though still an extremely popular and widely used test when development of the WAIS-III began, a 5-year development plan would allow the WAIS-III to be released just when the normative infor- mation was becoming outdated. Cognitive tests appear to require new normative data every 15±20 years (see Flynn, 1984, 1987; Matarazzo, 1972), and based on these estimates, the norms of the WAIS-R would be in danger of becoming obsolete by the late 1990s. The revision not only aVorded an opportunity to update the normative information but presented an opportunity to make other larger or smaller changes, based upon research Wndings and clinical usage. The question confronting the research team was how many other changes should be made. Given that the test was so widely used in the Weld, it would have been possible to either make no changes and only renorm the WAIS-R or, similarly, make a few ``cosmetic'' changes that would not impact upon the structure of the test or interpretation of the test results. On the surface, this would have been the simplest and easiest solution. It would not pose a threat to the Wechsler test tradition and, based upon the popularity of the WAIS-R, simply updating the norms would have been accepted by many in practice. At the same time, given the advances in theory, research, and assessment practices related to intelligence, the research team engaged in a critical examination of how many changes could or should be made. For instance, should factor-based index scores, as had been done for the WISC-III, be developed for the WAIS-III, should new subtests be created and added to the scale, and should some traditional subtests be eliminated? More importantly, had the IQ structure that had deWned the Wechsler scales since their inception outlived its usefulness or was it still an appropriate measure of cognitive functioning? This latter question represented one of the most signiWcant changes that the research team could have made. Moreover, such a revision would be in line with several contemporary publications. Several theorists and researchers were advancing models identifying multiple factors of cognitive functioning (e.g., Carroll, 1993), and the recent litera- 2. The Origin and Development of the WAIS-III 45 ture on the WISC-III had demonstrated the clinical utility of a four-factor structure (see PriWtera & Saklofske, 1998). The initial portion of this chapter reviews the changes that were made to the WAIS-III and the process that had occurred when making the changes. The second part of the chapter reviews the origins and historical antecedents of the WAIS-III subtests, and how they have changed over the years in subsequent revisions of the Wechsler Bellevue Intelligence Scale. CHANGING TEST SCORES AND NORMS Over the last three decades, it has been shown that the norms on standard- ized cognitive tests can become outdated over relatively short periods (see Flynn, 1984, 1987, Matarazzo, 1972). Flynn demonstrated that IQ scores from tests such as the Wechsler and Stanford-Binet tend to increase by approximately one third to two thirds of a point a year for various reasons (e.g., improved education). Following from these estimates and assuming that all else remained constant (e.g., test items and content remained rele- vant), the life span of the norms of a cognitive test would be only 15±20 years depending upon how much score inXation could be tolerated in research and clinical test practices. The WAIS-R was published in 1981, and according to these projections, would need to have been renormed before the turn of the millennium. If, at the minimum, periodic renorming was not performed, the test's mean scores (i.e., IQ and subtest scores), and possibly other psychometric characteristics (e.g., reliability, SEM), would likely begin to show increasing diVerences from the published norms. This inXationary or upward shift in mean scores, even if consistent across scales and ages, could result in interpretation errors if the actual amount of increase was unknown, or not factored into test scores as a kind of `reliable inXation' constant or correction factor. Hence, at the very least, new normative data should be collected periodically, and, if necessary, other changes could also then be made to the test before data are collected on a new standardization sample. Since the WAIS-R standard- ization sample had been collected during 1979±1980, new normative infor- mation would certainly have been needed by the targeted 1997 publication date set for the WAIS-III. However, of importance to the development of the WAIS-III was the recognition that many improvements to the test could be made that would assure its continuing and contemporary value in both research and clinical practice. 46 David S. Tulsky et al. REVISED TEST STRUCTURE Many of the changes made to the children's version, the WISC-III, helped to establish the goals for the WAIS-III revision process. The WISC-III was published in 1991, and although it clearly continued the Wechsler tradition for assessing intelligence, some signiWcant changes were introduced. Possibly the greatest change occurred because of the introduction of a new optional subtest, Symbol Search, which was initially intended to assist in strengthen- ing and more clearly deWning the third ``freedom from distractability'' factor (see Cohen, 1952a, 1952b, 1957, 1959; Kaufman, 1979; Wielkiewicz, 1990). The subtest design was drawn from experimental research on cogni- tion and attention conducted by ShiVrin and Schneider (1977). It had been anticipated that this subtest would correlate with the Arithmetic, Digit Span, and Coding subtests, and therefore all would load collectively on a third factor in exploratory factor analyses. However, the empirical Wndings sug- gested a diVerent pattern. Symbol Search was most highly correlated with the Coding subtest, and not with Digit Span nor Arithmetic, which clus- tered together. This new factor appeared to measure speed of information processing (see PriWtera, Weiss, & Saklofske, 1998). These results were conWrmed with the U.S. standardization sample as well as others (e.g., Canada: Roid & Worrall, 1997). The WISC-III was published with a supplemental four-factor scoring system that could be obtained if examiners administered two optional subsets (Wechsler, 1991). By including these factor or index scores as an ``alternative'' system for scoring and interpretation, the research team at The Psychological Corporation proceeded prudently, by introducing the more contemporary scores while leaving the traditional IQs unchanged. Thus the continuity of the scale across revisions could be preserved while ensuring that the test was grounded in current theory, research, and practice needs. The response from the Weld was positive; the addition of the Symbol Search subtest and the four- factor model were cited as two of the most important changes (see Kaufman, 1994). As well, the diagnostic utility of the WISC-III was now enhanced by the introduction of the attentional and processing speed factors (see PriWtera & Saklofske, 1998; Weiss, Saklofske, & PriWtera, 2003). GOALS FOR THE WAIS-III REVISION The many goals for the WAIS-III (Table 1) included those that were substantive, such as a co-norming research design that empirically linked 2. The Origin and Development of the WAIS-III 47 TABLE 1 Goals of the WAIS-III Revisiona Essential Goal 1: Updating of norms Substantive Goal 2: Develop four factor scores Goal 3: Link/Co-Norm with WMS-III and WIAT Goal 4: Extension of age range beyond 74 years Goal 5: Apply age corrections at the subtest level Goal 6: De-emphasize performance speed on perceptual tasks Goal 7: Enhance Xuid reasoning Goal 8: Improve diagnostic utility of the scales and subtests Item/subtest improvement Goal 9: Improved item content Goal 10: Extension of Xoor and ceiling Goal 11: Enhancement of scoring rules General updating, cosmetic, and designed to ease transition Goal 12: Improved stimulus material Goal 13: Publish validity studies aAdapted from information in Tulsky, Zhu, and Prifitera, 2000.