Annotations on the Use of the Mexican Norms for the WAIS-III

This article provides crucial information to judge the appropriateness of the Mexican version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition and recognizes some limitations in both the process of its adaptation to the Mexican population and the norm development process. This is an effort to contribute to the debate initiated by Suen and Greenspan (20086. Suen , H. , & Greenspan , S. ( 2008 ). Linguistic sensitivity does not require one to use grossly deficient norms: Why U.S. norms should be used with the Mexican WAIS-III in capital cases . Psychology in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities 12–15 . Official publication of Division 33, American Psychological Association. Available online at http://www.apa.org/divisions/div33/docs%5C34-1.pdf

View all references), who argued in court against the use of Mexican norms in a death penalty case, which depended upon establishing the diagnosis of mental retardation. As a part of the defense team, these scholars argued a number of points against the use of the Mexican norms. With input from the lead researcher on the Mexican standardization process, some of the criticisms are addressed, and further information about the norm development process for this test in Mexico is provided in an attempt to be critical about the strengths and weaknesses of the use of existing Mexican norms. Finally, we argue that results from a single test must not be used to make life and death decisions and that test development is a continuous process influenced by culture, language, and indeed by norm-developing procedures and debates.

Key words

• cross-cultural testing,
• intelligence testing,
• WAIS-III