Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: The American Psychological Association (2012) has published Guidelines for the Assessment of and Intervention with Persons with Disabilities.These guidelines emphasize the importance of recognizing social and cultural diversity for persons with disabilities (guideline 8, p. 49 ) and the need to apply assessment approaches that are "psychometrically sound, fair, comprehensive, and appropriate for clients with disabilities" (guideline 14, p. 52).In addition, the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD; 2011) has indicated IQ testing is a major tool in assessing intellectual disability.Also, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV; Wechsler, 2008) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-IV;Wechsler, 2003) have become two of the most widely used tests in the world for assessing intellectual disability (Chen & Zhu; 2008).Studies on both assessments have focused mainly on people who are generally functioning in the average range of cognitive ability.Among people whose level of functioning is less sophisticated, however, issues related to possible test bias are even more concerning, because their test scores might be even more deleteriously affected by bias than a test-taker whose ability is in the "average" range.To illuminate possible psychometric bias against people with disabilities resulting from cultural differences, this study looks specifically at any differences in the sample between age, gender, and race (specifically Blacks and Whites) as assessed by the WAIS-IV or WISC-IV scores, particularly among people being evaluated for disability benefits.This study seeks to investigate the possible presence of significant correlations between subtest, Index, and Full Scale scores and selected demographic variables.Since the data vii in this archival analysis will be derived from assessments of people who had been referred due to problems resulting from some form of cognitive impairment, the mean test scores fall below "average" scores for the standardization sample, which is considered to be roughly representative of the general U.S. population.Analyses of subscale scores will be conducted to determine whether subtest variability appears to have a significant relationship with any of three demographic variables of age, gender, and race.The purpose of this psychometric analysis is to implement the established practice guidelines in order to help assure the best possible care for persons being assessed for intellectual disability.
Author: R Clapp
Institution: Cleveland State University
Language: English
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2338792581