Abstract: Data describe the relationship of the WAIS and the Quick Test to an external measure of intellectual functioning in a group of 50 psychiatric patients in maximum security. Also examined were the relationships between the two tests. The Verbal and Full Scale WAIS IQs and Quick Test IQs were statistically comparable for this adult sample.

Abstract: A subsample of 229 persons from the population study "70-year-olds in Gothenburg" was studied with different intelligence tests. The non-response was 15%, and another 4% refused to take part in the psychological examination or had handicaps which made the performance of all or some of the tests impossible. Measurements were made of verbal meaning (SRB1), reasoning (SRB2), spatial ability (SRB3), perceptual speed (Ps-if) and logical thinking and observation (Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices). There were no differences in the tests between men and women except with Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices, where the men had a better score. Amongst the women, those who had received a longer education had a better score compared with those who had had less education. Norm-tables for the different tests are presented. As far as could be judged from cross-sectional comparisons the average general cognitive capability was good, even though the 70-year-olds to a higher degree were suffering from mental disorders than younger individuals and more often were living in social situations that could have influenced basic physical and mental functions. The perceptual speed was the only ability that showed a marked change at the age of 70.

Abstract: The authors assessed the IQs of 188 hospitalized psychiatric patients and found that 27 (14.4%) had IQs of 85 or less. However, the psychiatric records of 22 of the patients with low IQs showed that only 5 contained any mention of level of intellectual functioning. These findings suggest that a variable of major importance for diagnosis and treatment planning is often ignored.

Abstract: Maisto and Jerome (1977) reported a choice reaction time (RT) study relating the rate of memory scan to level of intellectual functioning. In this study, slope and intercept values of the RT function were found to be inversely related. Silverman (1978) has raised some concern over the conclusions reached by Maisto and Jerome due to the slope-intercept relationship revealed in their study, which seemingly violates one of the underlying assumptions of the additive factor method. Data were presented from previously reported research that places a number of studies with retarded persons as subjects suspect to this violation. Possible explanations for this finding were also provided.

Abstract: The diagnosis of specific learning disorders is a complex undertaking that requires the examination of a number of psychological dimensions. The “learning disabilities” label has often been abused and is frequently used to explain a wide range of school and behavior problems with little understanding of the criteria necessary for differential diagnosis. A complete evaluation for learning disabilities must assess cultural, structural, and emotional variables as well as intellectual functioning and academic achievement. Examination of the functional integrity of the various perceptual processes, including visual, auditory and kinesthetic modalities, is necessary, The clinician must establish that a delay in achievement does actually exist and that poor school performance is not a result of poor motivation or an unwillingness to demonstrate acquired skills. If a significant delay is found in the acquisition of secondary language symbol skills, then the examiner is pressed to determine which specific psychological, perceptual-associational, memory, or motor deficits are responsible for the learning disorder.

Abstract: This brief article discusses an aspect of research on cognitive development in which Soviet scholars have made a contribution that has not yet been picked up by their American counterparts. Elfimova divides groups of children for a concept-formation study not just on the basis of their chronological age or etiological status (measured by tests of intellectual functioning): she subdivides the groups in terms of the motivational manipulations that are effective in getting the children to engage fully in the task she presents.

Abstract: Visual recognition of pictorial material was investigated in a group of 76 patients with localized cerebral lesions. The aphasics as a group were most impaired in visual recognition, more than nonaphasic patients with left or right hemispheric lesions. It could be demonstrated that beside aphasia intellectual functioning and visual discrimination performance make significant contributions to visual recognition performance. Most of the divergent results in the literature on visual recognition performance in brain-damaged subjects could be reconciled with these three factors.

Abstract: This book reports an eight-year follow-up study of abused infants first seen when they were younger than 1 year of age. A one-year follow-up was published in 1967.1The present publication compares the outcome in 17 abused children with an equal number of children matched for age, race, sex, and socioeconomic status initially seen because of an accident and with a matched group without a history of abuse or accident. The social class of these children was predominantly low. The initial hypotheses were that the abused children would achieve less than the other groups in health, physical development, intellectual functioning, language, and self-concept, and would rate higher in impulsivity and aggression. In actuality, eight years later, few differences could be documented. All groups were replete with a variety of health, speech, school, and emotional difficulties. That children, younger than 1 year of age, in the study identified as abused

Abstract: Over the past two decades, mental retardation has received increasing recognition as a major social and health problem. Whether the problem is considered part of the general area of mental health as in Britain (Mental Health Act of 1959) or an independent entity on its own as in the United States (Presidents Panel on Mental Retardation, 1962) the implications of mental retardation for the mental health and well-being of the individual, his family, and the community have been abundantly recognized. As a result of heightened attention, mental retardation has lost much of its previous aura of pessimism and neglect and has emerged as an active subject of research and innovation in most developed countries. The main characteristics of the new approach to mental retardation may be summarized as follows: 1. It is realized that mental retardation is a relative concept. It is not merely a subnormal state of intellectual functioning as defined by a certain score on a given measure of intelligence: it is a failure in psychosocial adaptation caused by a combination of deficient intellectual performance and the rising expectations and stringent demands of a technologically sophisticated and socially complex cultural system. 2. Despite growing understanding of the mechanisms underlying the inheritance of intellectual functions, the earlier belief in the genetic determination of mental retardation has given way to an emphasis on environmental factors. This shift in emphasis, while not denying the existence of pathological conditions resulting from definite genetic variations, has given a new impetus and vitality to

Abstract: The relationship between cardiovascular disease (CVD) and intellectual functioning was investigated using a categorical division of a previously studied cross-sequential sample into groups with and without clinical cardiovascular diagnoses during the period of assessment. CVD was found to be a significant predictor of performance on several cognitive subtests, even when chronological age (cohort) was included as a factor in the statistical analysis. However, the pattern of effects was not completely consistent with a model relating CVD to intellectual decrement over time. Further breakdown of subjects into CVD subgroups (e.g., hypertension) showed the CVD effect to be specific to some subgroups, but did not fully resolve the inconsistency with the decremental model. The results also suggest CVD to be one of the factors leading to subsequent attrition from the sequential sample.