WAIS Results for Ss with Longstanding, Chronic, Lateralized and Diffuse Cerebral Dysfunction

Abstract

Several studies utilizing W-B I results have shown differential impairment on verbal or performance tasks associated with lateralized cerebral dysfunction. Only modest differential impairment, however, has been found among patients with longstanding, chronic brain damage. Increased use of the newer scale, the WAIS, warrants evaluation of possible differential impairment of selected clinical samples on this scale. WAIS results were compared for 28 Ss with longstanding maximal cerebral damage of the left hemisphere, 24 with maximal damage of the right hemisphere, and 46 with diffuse damage. Significant differences between group means were rare. However, the mean intra-individual difference between total Verbal and total Performance scores was highly significant for the right-lesion group, moderately significant for the diffuse-lesion group, and non-significant for the left-lesion group. Further investigation with the instrument is needed on groups which differ from those in the present study with respect to variables such as duration of cerebral dysfunction, type of lesion, and age of onset, in order to improve our understanding of relationships between cerebral dysfunction and ability deficits.