title: The use of word-reading to estimate "premorbid" ability in cognitive domains other than intelligence.
abstract: Diagnostic neuropsychological assessment requires the clinician to estimate a patient's premorbid abilities. Word reading tests, such as the National Adult Reading Test-Revised (NART-R), provide reasonably accurate estimates of premorbid IQ, but their capacity to benchmark other premorbid cognitive abilities remains unclear. In this extension of an earlier report, we administered the NART-R, an abbreviated Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-R or WAIS-III), and 26 other cognitive measures to 322 reasonably healthy adults. While NART-R performance correlated robustly (rs > or = .72) with concurrent Verbal and Full Scale IQ, its correlation with all other cognitive measures was significantly lower. Thus, while it is appealing to use word reading as a proxy for premorbid functioning in other cognitive domains, the NART-R has limited utility for this because it does not predict current performance on other cognitive tests as well as it predicts IQ in healthy adults.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21287, USA. dschret@jhmi.edu
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Schretlen
authors.forename: Angela L H
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Buffington
authors.forename: Stephen M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: Godfrey D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Pearlson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence / Q000502:physiology*; D007361:Intelligence Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011932:Reading