Utility of the Hobby WISC-R Split-half Short Form for children and adolescents with severe head injury.

This study investigated the utility of the Hobby WISC-R Split-half Short Form in a sample of children and adolescents with severe head injury. Subjects included 30 patients with severe closed-head injuries who were referred for neuropsychological testing as part of their hospitalization in a pediatric rehabilitation center. Subjects ranged in age from 7.5 to 16.2 years and were of the low to middle socioeconomic range. Analyses yielded significant correlations between scores on the standard WISC-R and the Split-half Short Form. Except for the WISC-R Split-half Short Form slightly overestimating scores on Object Assembly, no other score differences were obtained between the two forms. Patterns of strengths and weaknesses were variable for the two forms, with over-all agreements ranging from 46% on the Performance subtests to 53.7% on the Verbal subtests. The rate of classification agreement between the standard and short-form formats in assigning a child to one of five traditional IQ categories was 76.7%, with nearly all scores on the short form falling within one standard error of measurement of the standard WISC-R scores. There was a tendency for younger children to show more stability in their classification categories across the two WISC-R forms than older children. Issues related to the use of the WISC-R Split-half Short Form for a severely head-injured pediatric population are discussed.