Validity of two short forms of the WISC-R in children with traumatic brain injury

The validities of Kaufman's (1976) four-subtest short form and Kennedy and Elder's (1982) five-subtest short form for the WISC-R were evaluated in 98 children with traumatic brain injury. Both forms correlated highly with actual WISC-R FSIQ, and both forms had acceptable relationships to measures of injury severity. However, the Kaufman method had a larger standard error of measurement than did the Kennedy and Elder method, and the Kaufman method tended to overestimate actual FSIQ. It was concluded that the Kennedy and Elder short form for the WISC-R may be a relatively more accurate predictor of actual FSIQ in children with traumatic brain injury.