title: Measurement invariance in the assessment of people with an intellectual disability.
abstract: Intellectual assessment is central to the process of diagnosing an intellectual disability and the assessment process needs to be valid and reliable. One fundamental aspect of validity is that of measurement invariance, i.e. that the assessment measures the same thing in different populations. There are reasons to believe that measurement invariance of the Wechsler scales may not hold for people with an intellectual disability. Many of the issues which may influence factorial invariance are common to all versions of the scales. The present study, therefore, explored the factorial validity of the WAIS-III as used with people with an intellectual disability. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess goodness of fit of the proposed four factor model using 13 and 11 subtests. None of the indices used suggested a good fit for the model, indicating a lack of factorial validity and suggesting a lack of measurement invariance of the assessment with people with an intellectual disability. Several explanations for this and implications for other intellectual assessments were discussed.
authors.affiliation: Child and Adolescent Mental Health Learning Disability Service, 14-16 Hope Terrace, Edinburgh, EH9 2AR, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Hannah
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: MacLean
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: McKenzie
authors.forename: Gill
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kidd
authors.forename: Aja L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Murray
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schwannauer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014888:Wechsler Scales / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data