Relationships among WAIS subtest scores, patient's premorbid history, and institutionalization.

Abstract

Forty schizophrenic patients equally divided among four groups on the basis of their premorbid history and the length of time they had been hospitalized were given the WAIS. The WAIS IQ for poor premorbids tended to be higher than for good premorbids, but good premorbids demonstrated significantly higher motor performance (WAIS Digit Symbol and Block Design). There appeared to be a relationship between lower verbal abstractive and decisionmaking abilities (WAIS Comprehension and Similarities) and length of institutionalization. These last results may be interpreted as suggesting that, for schizophrenics at least, performance on certain types of intelligence test tasks may be lower for patients who have undergone prolonged institutionalization.

Level versus pattern of neuropsychological performance among schizophrenic and diffusely brain-damaged patients.

“…Further investigation of potential group differences in the patterns of deficit on the WAIS and AIR variables employed deficit pattern scores (Davis et al, 1971(Davis et al, , 1972DeWolfe et al, 1971;Watson, 1971). Each subject's mean T score for the WAIS and AIR subtests was subtracted from his or her individual subtest T scores on these batteries.…”

“…Because of the relatively frequent failure to find differences between organic and schizophrenic groups in terms of absolute test scores, several researchers have attempted to identify group differences in pattern of performance on neuropsychological test batteries. While the search for pattern differences is not new (Rapaport, Copyright 1979 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-006X/79/4701-0155$00.75 Gill, & Schafer, 194S-1946;Wechsler, 1958), Davis, Dizzonne, and DeWolfe (1971) note that research aimed at identifying characteristic patterns of subtest scatter for schizophrenic and brain-damaged patients has often been hampered by the confounding effect of initial group differences in mean level of performance. Several studies have attempted to overcome this methodological problem by examining pattern differences between schizophrenic and braindamaged patients while controlling for differences in mean level of performance (Davis, DeWolfe, & Gustafson, 1972;De-Wolfe, Barrell, Becker, & Spaner, 1971;Watson, 1971).…”

Are there two kinds of thinking in process and reactive schizophrenics?

“…High Pt scores are associated with internalization of anxiety rather than expression of it, while high emotionality is associated with high Ma scores. Process groups were lower in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) Digit Symbol performance relative to their own average level of performance than were reactives in three independent samples (Davis, DeWolfe, & Gustafson, 1972;Davis, Dizzonne, & DeWolfe, 1971). In factor analyses, the Digit Symbol subtest has shown a high motivation component which is the main characteristic distinguishing it from other performance subtests.…”

Premorbid adjustment and affective expression in schizophrenia.

“…One solution to this last problem was presented in research on the Halstead battery and the WAIS (DeWolfe, Barrell,Becker,& Spaner,197.1) and the WAIS alone (Davis, Dizzonne, & DeWolfe, 1971) in which the individual S's own mean scaled subtest score was subtracted from each of his scaled subtest scores. This method provided a means of evaluating an individual's subtest deviations relative to his own average performance.…”