Subtest scatter and premorbid intelligence: Lessons from the WAIS—R standardization sample.

This study was carried out to underscore that the psychometric properties of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) make it risky for a clinician to utilize, in isolation, an individual's highest WAIS-R subtest score as a robust measure of that person's supposedly higher level of «premorbid» intelligence, or, furthermore, to interpret the individual's lowest WAIS-R subtest scores as indices of an «impairment» in the brain-behavior functions believed to be mirrored by these low subtest scores