Demographic adjustments for the Spanish version of the WAIS-III

Normative scores for attentional tests used by the Spanish consortium for ageing normative data (SCAND) study: Trail Making Test, Digit Symbol and Letter Cancellation

Objective: This paper reports normative data for different attentional tests obtained from a sample of middle-aged and older native Spanish adults and considering effects of age, educational level and sex. Method: 2,597 cognitively intact participants, aged from 50 to 98 years old, participated voluntarily in the SCAND consortium studies. The statistical procedure included conversion of percentile ranges into scaled scores. The effects of age, education and sex were taken into account. Linear regressions were used to calculate adjusted scaled scores. Results: Scaled scores and percentiles corresponding to the TMT, Digit Symbol and Letter Cancellation Task are shown. Additional tables show the values to be added to or subtracted from the scaled scores, for age and education in the case of the TMT and Letter Cancellation Task measures, and for education in the case of the Digit Symbol subtest. Conclusions: The current norms provide clinically useful data for evaluating Spanish people aged 50 to 98 years old and contribute to improving detection of initial symptoms of cognitive impairment.

Demographically-adjusted norms for the WAIS-R Block Design and Arithmetic subtests: Results from the Neuropsychological Norms for the US-Mexico Border Region in Spanish (NP-NUMBRS) project

OBJECTIVE

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) Block Design and Arithmetic subtests are frequently used as measures of visuospatial construction and verbal working memory, respectively. As part of a larger test adaptation and norming effort for this population, we generated and investigated demographically-adjusted interpretive norms for WAIS-R Block Design and Arithmetic in Spanish-speaking adults living in the US-Mexico border region.

METHOD

Participants included 183 community-dwelling adults ages 20-55 (education range: 0-20 years; 58% women) from the NeuroPsychological-Norms for the US-Mexico Border Region in Spanish (NP-NUMBRS) Project. They completed the WAIS-R Block Design and Arithmetic subtests in Spanish. Demographically-adjusted T-scores were calculated for these subtests using fractional polynomial equations adjusting for linear and non-linear effects of age, education (continuous), and sex. We compared our rates of impairment (i.e. T < 40) against rates calculated using published English-speaking WAIS-R standardization sample norms adjusted for age, education, and sex.

RESULTS

Education was positively associated with performance on Block Design and Arithmetic subtests, and men outperformed women on both subtests. The present Spanish-speaker norms for these subtests yielded expected rates of "impairment" (i.e. 15-16% impaired, a 1 SD cutoff), while existing norms for English-speakers underestimated impairment (i.e. 5-6% impaired) when applied to our Spanish-speaking sample.

CONCLUSIONS

Regional normative data will improve interpretation of test performance on Block Design and Arithmetic subtests for Spanish-speakers living in the US-Mexico border region and may aid in bolstering the overall analysis of neuropsychological profile patterns in this population. Cross-validation with Spanish-speakers in other regions and/or with other national origins is needed.

Norm comparisons of the Spanish-language and English-language WAIS-III: Implications for clinical assessment and test adaptation

This study provides a systematic comparison of the norms of 3 Spanish-language Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scales (WAIS-III) batteries from Mexico, Spain, and Puerto Rico, and the U.S. English-language WAIS-III battery. Specifically, we examined the performance of the 4 normative samples on 2 identical subtests (Digit Span and Digit Symbol-Coding) and 1 nearly identical subtest (Block Design). We found that across most age groups the means associated with the Spanish-language versions of the 3 subtests were lower than the means of the U.S. English-language version. In addition, we found that for most age ranges the Mexican subsamples scored lower than the Spanish subsamples. Lower educational levels of Mexicans and Spaniards compared to U.S. residents are consistent with the general pattern of findings. These results suggest that because of the different norms, applying any of the 3 Spanish-language versions of the WAIS-III generally risks underestimating deficits, and that applying the English-language WAIS-III norms risks overestimating deficits of Spanish-speaking adults. There were a few exceptions to these general patterns. For example, the Mexican subsample ages 70 years and above performed significantly better on the Digit Symbol and Block Design than did the U.S. and Spanish subsamples. Implications for the clinical assessment of U.S. Spanish-speaking Latinos and test adaptation are discussed with an eye toward improving the clinical care for this community. (PsycINFO Database Record

Norms and reliability for the Spanish version of the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) Form A

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia in the adult population. Tools capable of detecting predementia and established diagnoses of dementia are very important for assessing these patients. The Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) is a brief neuropsychological battery that has been successful at detecting cognitive impairment in degenerative and nondegenerative neurological diseases. The objective of this study was to test reliability and sensibility and obtain normative data of a Spanish adaptation of the RBANS. In this study, 50 participants with AD and 336 healthy participants stratified according to the Spanish Census, with different levels of education, were tested with the RBANS (Form A). Descriptive analyses were performed on a pilot sample from the general population, and comparative analyses were performed on data from the two samples. We obtained an overall reliability coefficient (Cronbach's alpha) of .92. RBANS showed strong specificity and moderately low sensitivity. Participants in the AD group performed significantly worse on most subtests than control participants. Implications with regard to the specificity and sensitivity of the Spanish version of the RBANS are discussed.

The screen for cognitive impairment in psychiatry: diagnostic-specific standardization in psychiatric ill patients

BACKGROUND

The Screen for Cognitive Impairment in Psychiatry (SCIP) is a simple and easy to administer scale developed for screening cognitive deficits. This study presents the diagnostic-specific standardization data for this scale in a sample of schizophrenia and bipolar I disorder patients.

METHODS

Patients between 18 and 55 years who are in a stable phase of the disease, diagnosed with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, schizophreniform disorder, or bipolar I disorder were enrolled in this study.

RESULTS

The SCIP-S was administered to 514 patients (57.9% male), divided into two age groups (18-39 and 40-55 years) and two educational level groups (less than and secondary or higher education). The performance of the patients on the SCIP-S is described and the transformed scores for each SCIP-S subtest, as well as the total score on the instrument, are presented as a percentile, z-score, T-scores, and IQ quotient.

CONCLUSIONS

We present the first jointly developed benchmarks for a cognitive screening test exploring functional psychosis (schizophrenia and bipolar disorder), which provide increased information about patient's cognitive abilities. Having guidelines for interpreting SCIP-S scores represents a step forward in the clinical utility of this instrument and adds valuable information for its use.