Intelligence evaluation with short forms of WAIS for populations of low socioeconomic status Evaluación de la inteligencia a través de formas cortas del WAIS para poblaciones de nivel socioeconómico bajo.

Abstract

A WAIS-S short form for the assessment of intelligence as a confounding variable is proposed. A number of 161 complete WAIS-S protocols, relating to women of lower-middle and low socioeconomic status were analysed. Six subtests (Social Comprehension, Similarities, Vocabulary, Block Design, Picture Completion and Object Assembly) were chosen using two criteria: specific functions evaluated by each subtest and correlation coefficients relating IQ to the subtests. Five WAIS-S short forms were evaluated: one consisting of six subtests and the others with different combinations of four of them. Data showed that they were all appropriate for the measurement of intelligence as a confounding variable; the correlation coefficients between short forms and total IQ ranged from 0.90 to 0.94. The standard errors of the short forms for the estimation of total IQ were of 3 or 4 points, and 3 to 7% of the subjects were wrongly classified. When maternal intelligence had to be measured in relation to in