Faculty Articles

Identification of Malingered Head Injury on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale - 3rd Edition.

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

The Clinical Neuropsychologist

ISSN

1385-4046

Publication Date

12-2001

Abstract

Head injured patients show an IQ subtest pattern that can be discriminated from the profile produced by individuals who attempt to malinger intellectual decline due to head trauma. The current paper demonstrates that previously replicated methods for making this discrimination on the WAIS - R generalize to the WAIS - 3. The discriminant function equation accurately classified 83% of nonlitigating head-trauma patients with documented injuries and 72% of persons simulating intellectual impairment due to head trauma. A total of 45% of litigating mild head-trauma patients with purported intellectual decline but no documented loss of consciousness, hospitalization, or CT abnormality were classified as malingering by the discriminant function. A Vocabulary-Digit Span difference score provided 71% overall diagnostic accuracy, and may be informative when screening profiles by visual inspection or when complete WAIS - 3 results are unavailable.

DOI

10.1076/clin.15.4.440.1885

Volume

15

Issue

4

First Page

440

Last Page

445

Peer Reviewed

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