Comparison of four short forms of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale - third edition (WAIS-III)

The French-speaking researchers and clinicians who assess intelligence with the WAIS-III, but have few time or evaluate individuals unable to cope with long standardized tasks, have often to construct their own short scale, arbitrarily selecting some subtests or shortening these subtests without respect of their psychometrical properties. In this study, our goal was to fill in this lack of a French short form of the WAIS-III. We compared four short forms developed on the basis of the factorial structure of the scale and on the psychometrical properties of the French norms. Using comprehensive statistical analysis, we identified one among the four forms that provide the best estimate, with the smallest error of measurement, of the IQ measured with the WAIS-III full scale. (C) 2007 Elsevier Masson SAS.