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Overview of WAIS-5 Clinical, Psychometric, and Structural Changes

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This webinar provides an overview of the significant clinical, psychometric, and structural changes introduced in the new Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Fifth Edition (WAIS-5), highlighting its enhanced theoretical foundations, improved user-friendliness, and increased clinical utility compared to its predecessor.

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Hello and welcome to our webinar, an

overview of the ways five clinical

psychometric and structural changes. I'm

Erin Gunnelsson, senior product manager.

Our presenter today is Dr. Gail Rhoden.

Dr. Dr. Rhoden is a clinical

neurossychologist who majored in

psychology as an undergraduate at Yale

University and completed her PhD in

clinical psychology at New York

University. In 1994, she opened the

center for attention learning and memory

in Rally through which she offered

clinical assessment services as well as

training for fellow professionals. She

worked as an assessment consultant for

Pearson Clinical Assessment for 22 years

after which she founded consulting for

attention learning and memory LLC. Her

clinical interests include learning disorders,

disorders,

psychoppharmacology and the integration

of scientific findings into public

policy. This webinar is being presented

in broadcast audio. Please turn up your

computer speakers as there are no dialin

options. We are also presenting with

closed captioning. The webinar handout

will be posted in the chat box in a few

minutes. Please download the document

during the live presentation. There is

also a Q&A box in Zoom. Please type your

questions, concerns, or comments into

the Zoom Q&A. Questions in the chat box

will not be monitored, so please

leverage the Q&A. We will answer

questions live at the end, time

permitting. If your question is not

answered during the live presentation or

you wish to speak with a representative,

please fill out the follow-up form in a

link that will pop up after the webinar.

Webinar certificates of attendance will

be automatically emailed to you within a

few days. As noted in the registration,

you must participate the entire 30

minutes to be eligible for the

certificate. With all of that being

said, I will turn it over to Gail.

Thank you, Erin. Good morning or good

afternoon depending on where you're

logging in from. My name is Gail Rhoden

and today I'll be covering some of the

most important clinical, psychometric,

and structural changes to the new waist

5. As I'm sure you all know, the waist 5

is an individually administered test of

cognitive ability for adults and

adolescents ages 16 and above. It's the

leading adult intellectual ability

measure in the world and now has 20

subtests measuring five cognitive

domains as well as producing a measure

of global intelligence, the full scale

IQ. Here's an overview of what we'll be

covering today. So, let's get started. I

did not put Q&A at the bottom because we

never quite know how long it's going to

take to go through this, but I hope

we'll have at least five minutes at the

questions. We'll look first at the

revision goals in moving from the waist

four to the waist

five. Here were the major goals. We

wanted to update the theoretical

foundations of the test. This includes

things like reviewing the latest

neurodedevelopmental and neurocognitive

research and looking carefully at recent

models of working

memory. Increasing developmental

appropriateness includes improving the

phrasing of both instructions and items.

making some changes to scoring criteria

and improving the test's

accessibility, especially for older

adults who may have compromised or

declining fine motor and/or expressive language

language

abilities. Increasing user friendliness

means making the test easier to navigate

for both examiners and clients. It

includes things like improving

administration and scoring directions

and reducing testing

time. We've improved the test

psychometric properties by updating its

norms as well as our norming method and

by providing evidence of strong

reliability and validity, improving

ceilings and floors and working hard to

minimize item bias.

Increased clinical utility means making

the test more useful for different types

of clients and different referral

questions. Examples include changing the

test structure to a five factor model,

developing new ancillary index scores,

linking to adult measures of

achievement, and providing new special

group studies.

Finally, we've significantly reduced

testing time. On average, it should now

take you about 45 minutes to obtain a

full-scale IQ and about 60 minutes to

scores. Another feature that will help

reduce the time to test some clients is

different, that is later start points.

for examinees you suspect may be

intellectually gifted. These will allow

you to administer 30 fewer items across

the seven subtests used to calculate the

full scale IQ while following the

subtest. Because the age ranges of the

WHISK 5 and waist five overlap for

examinees age 16, I'm often asked which

test practitioners should use with this

age group. For examinees suspected of

below average cognitive ability, the

Whisk 5 is generally the better choice

because of its lower floor for this age

range. It's also often the better test

with referral questions like whether a

client has a specific learning

disability because of its additional

composite scores and links to

achievement tests. By contrast,

examinees of high cognitive ability are

generally better served by the waist

five due to its higher ceiling for this

age group. For the examinee of average

ability, the choice between the WHISK 5

and the waist 5 requires clinical

judgment from the educational or

psychological professional will be

administering the test. Now both the

whisk five and waist five provide a

nonverbal index that requires no

expressive responses which may be useful

for examinees who are English language

learners or who have expressive language

difficulties. But for examinees who are

primarily Spanish-speaking with limited

English proficiency and limited exposure

to American culture, the Whisk 5 Spanish

is the best choice to reduce the

confounding effects of language on composite

scores. Let's turn now to some of the

First of all, two subtests on the waist

4 have been dropped. Picture completion and

and

cancellation. In addition to

psychometric issues, picture completion

was the least used of the subtests on

waist 4, which made it a good candidate

for removal. And there were a number of

reasons why cancellation was removed,

including its very low G loading and its

relatively low correlation with the

other processing speed tasks. And

importantly, removing cancellation

opened up a slot to add a

measure. Here are the new subtests

you'll find in waist 5. Notice that they

improve coverage of fluid reasoning,

working memory, and processing speed,

while two of them are shared with the

whims 5 and allow examiners to obtain a

visual working memory composite score

from waste 5. This slide is really a

tease as I'm not going to say anything

more today about these new subtests

since we'll be devoting a complete

webinar next Wednesday. at the same time

that will cover their administration and

detail. Now let's move on to changes in

test structure which are an important

feature of the new

revision. Instead of the four factor

model in waist 4, the waist 5 has five

primary index scales like the whisk

five. What was the perceptual reasoning

scale has been divided into two scales,

visual spatial and fluid reasoning.

Again, just as on the Whisk

5. For those of you who haven't used the

Whisk 5, it may take a little time to

get used to this new five factor model

and understand the differences between

the two new primary index scales. I find

this slide helpful in differentiating

between them. The visual spatial index

is assessing the skills needed to be a

good architect. That is the ability to

take in visual information and use it to

build a geometric design that matches a

model. Subtests on this index scale are

block design and visual puzzles. In

contrast, to do well in the fluid

reasoning index, a client needs the

skills of a detective. That is the

ability to use visual information to

identify a common theme or concept and

then apply that concept to solve a

problem or select the appropriate

This slide shows you how the waist 5

subtests retained from waist 4 align

with the five primary index scales.

Notice that digit span has been divided

into three separate subtests on waist 5.

One of these new subtests, digits

forward, must be administered prior to

digit sequencing, but does not

contribute to either the full scale IQ

score or the working memory index scale.

The other change in allocation is that

the arithmetic subtest has been moved

from the working memory index to the

fluid reasoning index as it better

So here again is the factor structure of

waste 5 which aligns with the clinical,

theoretical and psychometric information

test. The subtests you see here in blue

are those you need to administer to

obtain a full scale IQ score along with

digits forward. as I mentioned for which

the score will not contribute to the

full scale IQ. The subtests in italics

are those available should you need to

make a

substitution. But note the rule at the

bottom of the slide. You may make only

one substitution when deriving the full

scale score and that substituted subtest

must come from the same domain as the

substituting. Excuse me. It's allergy

This slide shows you the subtests that

you must administer in order to

calculate the five primary index

scores. Those subtests are printed in

them. This slide showing ancillary index

scales has a lot of information packed

into it. So I'm going to break it down

and go over it in subsequent

slides. What I want to stress in this

slide is the fact that the nonmotor

index scale is also ideal for remote or

teleaalth administration since its component

component

Now let's look at that busy slide, a

piece at a time. Along the top row, you

see one type of ancillary index scale.

There's an expanded index scale for each

of the five domains. And this slide

one. Here's a second type of ancillary

domainspecific. Note that we have scores

for verbal reasoning, quantitative

reasoning, and motor reduced processing

speed, which is not to be confused with

the non-motor ancillary scale. In the

working memory column, you'll see three

new domain specific scores. One measures

visual working memory. The other two

look at auditory working memory. One

specifically at the ability to register

and briefly retain auditory information.

The other to evaluate manipulation of

auditory information after it's been registered.

Finally, there are four ancillary index

scores that serve to summarize

performance across multiple domains.

Most of you are probably familiar with

the GAI or general ability index, which

assesses what I like to call the

horsepower of an examinees cognitive

ability without including any subtests

that measure working memory or

processing speed. The GI is often

important to look at for examiners with

ADHD, a specific learning disability,

and other conditions that may make

processing slower or more subject to

simple errors attributable to working

memory deficits. It's also the

appropriate score to compare to other

components of cognitive functioning such

as memory.

Its partner is the cognitive proficiency

index which looks at how efficiently the

examinee processes relatively simple

tasks, those from the working memory and

processing speed domains.

The other two summary index scores are

the nonverbal index for those with

limited English exposure or expressive

language disorders and the non-mo index

helpful when testing individuals with

motor impairment as well as for remote

This slide again shows you the subtests

that contribute to each of these summary

index scores. And again, a reminder that

that non-motor index can be used easily

assessment. Finally, this slide shows

all the ancillary index scales and the

subtests that contribute to each of

them. The important point of this slide

is near the top in red. It tells us that

subtest substitution is not permitted

for any of these ancillary indexes with

the exception of the nonmo

index. More information is available in

the waist 5 administration and scoring manual.

Let's turn next to a brief look at the

administration and scoring options for

5. For administration, you can use the

traditional paper kit or use Q

interactive to administer digitally

using two

iPads. In addition, there are scoring

options. If you administered using the

traditional paper kit, you can either

score by hand or opt for digital scoring

using Pearson's online Q Global system.

If you're administering using Q

Interactive, digital scoring is included

in the QI system.

Digital scoring, whether from Q Global

or Q Interactive, is a great timesaver

and provides quality control because we

don't have to do all those table lookups

which are prone to error. Both Q options

5. I'd like to say just a few words

As you can see, there were over 2,000

individuals in the sample, which was

stratified by sex, education level,

country. Did you know that we had almost

half of the sample collected when COVID

19 hit in March 2020 and we had to pause

data collection? We hoped that we'd be

able to continue with examiners and

examinees wearing

PPE, personal protective equipment, but

a pilot study showed that the scores

collected with PPE were not equivalent

to those we had collected previously.

So, we opted to discard the pre2020 data

and start over in January

on. Let's talk a little bit about the

psychometric properties, reliability,

and validity of the waist

5. Looking first at reliability for

composite scores, we want to see values

of 0.90 or higher. And that's exactly

what we see for the reliability

coefficients for the full scale IQ and

primary index

scores. For the ancillary scores, all

had reliability coefficients in the

excellent range with the exception of

the motor reduced processing speed index

which was in the good range. Looking at

internal consistency, you'll see it was

0.98 for the full scale IQ and all the

index scores scored 0.90 or

above. Test retest stability was

calculated for both the full scale IQ

and that was

93 and for all index and subtest scores.

We expect these to show more variability

which they did ranging from 71 to

0.93. An intercorer agreement was

evaluated in a special study for the

verbal comprehension subtests producing

Turning to validity, we evaluated

construct validity in a number of ways,

all of which produce strong results. And

as you can see here, we found moderate

to high correlations with other measures

of cognitive ability and related

concepts such as academic achievement

Finally, before we wrap up, let's take a

look at the special group studies that were

were

done. The special group studies are

important to look at as the Waist 5 is

one of Pearson's most widely used

products and is administered by a wide

variety of psychologists for many

different purposes.

Also, it's often a critical part of a

battery of tests used to assess a person

being considered for a particular

diagnosis or status. For example, it's

frequently used to assess for

neurocognitive conditions such as intellectual

intellectual

disability, dementia, or specific

learning disorders, or to establish if

an individual is intellectually

gifted. The waist 5 can also be used in

other types of evaluations to understand

strengths and treatment needs such as

those for individuals with

ADHD, those on the autism spectrum, and

stroke. So, let's sum up some of the

most important features and changes that

characterize the waist 5.

What's great about it? Well, it

incorporates the five factor model. It

allows us to comprehensively evaluate

working memory. It's co-ormed with the

whims 5, which will publish over the

summer or in the next few months. It's

available in both paper and digital

formats for both administration and

scoring. And very importantly, it offers

faster administration time than its

predecessor. What's new in waste 5? It

has new subtests which I'll describe in

detail next at next Wednesday's webinar.

Three are available only on the waist 5

while two more are shared with the whims

5. We have later start points for

individuals suspected to be

intellectually gifted. Another

timesaver. It has a host of new indices

including expanded indices for all five

primary domains and new index scores for

clients with expressive language or

motor problems with the latter also

ideal for remote administration.

And finally, what's better about this

new revision? First, we've reduced the

administration time for both the full

scale IQ and 10 primary

subtests. We've expanded construct

coverage for working memory, fluid

reasoning, and processing speed.

Administration and scoring directions

have been simplified and we've focused

on developmental appropriateness,

especially for older

examinees. Of course, the norms have

been updated and we've added a number of

ancillary index scores that allow

examiners a great deal of flexibility in

administration and interpretation as

I'd like to finish up by sharing with

you the types of training that Pearson

makes available for the waist 5. This

slide shows the three types of

offerings. We have per seat sessions

where you as an individual or a small

group can sign up. These are a half day.

those scheduled for a private group of

up to 40 clinicians with your choice of

date, time, and modality, either

web-based or in

person, and custom trainings that we put

together to meet special learning

needs. And here are the half-day and

fullday trainings available today. A

much more detailed overview of waste 5,

a half day. Waist 5 on Q interactive,

also a half day. A full day on

administration, scoring, and basic

interpretation. And finally, a half-day

session on interpretation and intervention

intervention

decisionmaking. Here are the next

halfhour webinars that I'll be hosting

on the next two Wednesdays. So I hope

you'll mark your calendars and sign up.

One will introduce you to the new waist

five subtests in detail and the other

will be an overview of using the waist 5

and whims 5 together to assess both

cognition and memory.

We have just a few minutes left to

address a couple of the many questions

that I think have come in. And if I

don't get to your question now, as Erin

told you up top, you'll have an

opportunity to ask to get in touch with

your assessment consultant with the uh

questionnaire that comes up after this

webinar is completed. And I've also put

here a URL where you can go to find the

assessment consultant for your state and

your type of practice and you can

contact them for the information you

need. So, do we have a couple questions

we can sneak in? Yes, thank you so much,

Gail. Uh, one question had come in about

the recording of this webinar. So, yes,

we will be posting the recording of this

webinar um out to our our website and so

check in for that in a few days. Um we

usually get those posted pretty quickly.

Um I thought I'd go ahead and answer

that one. Um one question that came in,

are we still allowed to administer this

test uh on paper or are only the digital

options available? Oh, no. Absolutely.

You can purchase a a typical traditional

paper and pencil kit. You can administer

it using paper and pencil. You can score

it by hand if you like. But as I

mentioned, using digital scoring, which

would be Q global for the paper kit, is

a great way to improve quality control

because it skips all of those uh table

lookups and also um it's a big

timesaver. But yes, absolutely, you can

do digital or you can do paper administration.

administration.

Great. Thank you so much. Uh there also

was a question on how long customers

should be allowed to take to to move to

the new version. So uh what is the

recommendation typically to adopt the

new version of a test? Oh, that's always

a question and and I hate to um not give

you a hard and fast answer, but I and a

couple of colleagues researched this a

few years ago and we actually wrote a

paper on it and it turns out um there's

no absolute rule from APA or your state

psychology boards. Um, sometimes school

districts do have a a time frame and

typically that's one year. Other places

I've seen one to two years, but I would

recommend you get on board. Now, this

test has been around for a while. We

want to be sure that Flynn effects are

not interfering with getting in um

accurate scores. So I would recommend

that you switch to this test within the

next the year from the time it was

published which was tell me again last

August August. Yeah. Oh my gosh. So

we're coming up coming up on us. Yeah.

Yep. All right. Uh there was a couple of

questions about training. So we

definitely recommend um the per seat

training or looking into those training

options. um that will give you a really

good idea of all the different pieces

that are included in ways five. Um so

check out our options for training um or

reach out to your assessment

representative to talk through options

that might uh work best for you. Uh with

that being said, Gail, thank you so much

for being here. We're looking forward to

your webinar next week to dive into the

new subtest more. Um and thank you

everybody for joining us to participate

today. Thanks so much and have a great

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YouTube Transcript:Overview of WAIS-5 Clinical, Psychometric, and Structural Changes