Fifteen-year stability of some neuropsychological tests in learning disabled subjects with and without neurological impairment.

The stability of the WISC/WAIS-R and seven other commonly used neuropsychological tests over a period of 15 years was investigated in 133 learning-disabled subjects, and for subgroups with hard neurological signs, soft neurological signs, and without neurological findings. Results showed high and significant correlation coefficients between time 1 (mean age 10 years) and time 2 (mean age 25 years), even though for some tests a change from the children's to the adult version occurred. Using a repeated-measures multivariate design, the three subgroups did not differ on this limited test battery. The correlation coefficients for the three subgroups provide an estimate of the range of stability in three different samples.