Frequently Asked Question:
Demographically adjusted norms for Asian missing; not White, Latino, etc.
Resolution:
Brief Interpretation Guide for the WAIS-III WMS-III Full Demographic Adjusted Norms
The Full Demographic Adjusted norms adjust WAIS-III WMS-III indexes and subtests for Ages (20-89), Education-Level (7-17 years), Ethnicity (African-American, Hispanic and Caucasian, only) and Sex, for individuals primarily educated in the U.S.
The Full Demographic Adjustments for the WAIS-III and WMS-III norms are available in the current edition of the WAIS-III WMS-III WIAT-II Scoring Assistant.
- To obtain the demographic adjustments, open the report wizard
- On the second page of the report wizard find the WAIS-III Norms header in the lower right portion of the table
- Select Demographically Adjusted
These norms are presented as T-scores (mean = 50, SD =10). The T-scores are interpreted as follows:
- > 55 Above Average
- 45-54 Average
- 40-44 Low Average
- 35-39 Mild Impairment
- 30-34 Mild to Moderate Impairment
- 25-29 Moderate Impairment
- 20-24 Moderate to Severe Impairment
- < 20 Severe Impairment
The full demographic adjusted norms are intended for application in the context of a neurodiagnostic assessment to minimize the impact that psychosocial variables may have on the diagnosis of cognitive impairment. The T-Scores are not intended for use in psychoeducational evaluations, determination of intellectual deficiency, vocational assessment or in any context in which the purpose of the evaluation is to determine the absolute functional level (IQ and Memory) of the examinee.
The demographic norms are derived from the application of fractional polynomial regression procedures (Royston and Altman, 1994), to the standardization and education/ethnicity over-sample cases from the WAIS-III WMS-III
Reference: Taylor, M. J. & Heaton, R. K. (2001). Sensitivity and specificity of WAIS-III WMS-III demographically corrected factor scores in neuropsychological assessment. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 7, 867-874.
This document prepared by James Holdnack, Ph.D., Senior Research Director, The Psychological Corporation. The information is presented here is based on personal communications with the authors (Robert Heaton, Ph.D. and Michael Taylor, Ph.D.)
Royston, P. & Altman, D. G. (1994). Regression using fractional polynomials of continuous covariates: Parsimonious parametric modeling. Applied Statistics, 43, 429-467.
