Our purpose was not to assess the differences in language used across the Spanish versions. In the current study, we examine the normative data of the three published Spanish-language versions of the WAIS-III from Mexico, Spain and Puerto Rico, as well as the US WAIS-III from which they were adapted. It is unclear how the different Spanish-language norms compare to each other. In addition, previous research has only examined in any given study the norms of a single Spanish-language WAIS as it relates to the norms of the US WAIS (e.g., López & Taussig, 1991). There is some evidence that these differences are related to differences in the educational level of the normative samples ( López & Romero, 1988). As a result some clinical investigators argue against their use (e.g., Melendez, 1994). Prior research indicates that the normative samples from the Mexican WAIS-III and the earlier Puerto Rican EIWA scored much lower than the US English language normative sample (e.g., Suen & Greenspan, 2009). It is not clear what the strengths and weaknesses are of the norms for the three versions. The WAIS-III-M and EIWA-PR are also important to consider as their normative samples are drawn from Mexico and Puerto Rico, the origin of the greatest number of US Latinos ( Ennis, Rios-Vargas & Albert, 2011). Of these batteries, the WAIS-III from Spain has garnered the most attention by researchers (e.g., Choca, Krueger, de la Torre, Corral, & Garside, 2009). During the last 15 years, the three most relevant published Spanish-language versions of the WAIS include one from Mexico (WAIS-III-M Wechsler, 2003), Spain (WAIS-III-S Wechsler, 2001), and Puerto Rico (EIWA-III-PR Wechsler, 2008). The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scales (WAIS) have long been the gold standard for the evaluation of cognitive abilities in adults in the US, and several Spanish-language versions have been developed. Understanding the normative samples of measures developed for Spanish-speakers can improve our ability to assess this linguistic group residing in the United States. As a result, the assessment of Spanish-speakers has received increasing attention from clinical researchers (e.g., Siedlecki et al., 2010) and test developers (e.g., Riverside Publishing and Pearson). Of the over 50 million Latinos residing in the US, more than 9 million (19%) reported speaking English not well or not at all ( US Census Bureau, 2012). Implications for the clinical assessment of US Spanish-speaking Latinos and test adaptation are discussed with an eye toward improving the clinical care for this community. For example, the Mexican subsample aged 70 and above performed significantly better on the Digit Symbol and Block Design than the US and Spanish subsamples. There were a few exceptions to these general patterns. These results suggest that because of the different norms, applying any of the three Spanish-language versions of the WAIS-III generally risks underestimating deficits, and that applying the English-language WAIS-III norms risks overestimating deficits of Spanish-speaking adults. Lower educational levels of Mexicans and Spaniards compared to US residents are consistent with the general pattern of findings. In addition, we found that for most age ranges the Mexican subsamples scored lower than the Spanish subsamples. We found that across most age groups the means associated with the Spanish-language versions of the three subtests were lower than the means of the US English-language version. Specifically, we examined the performance of the four normative samples on two identical subtests (Digit Span and Digit Symbol-Coding) and one nearly identical subtest (Block Design). This study provides a systematic comparison of the norms of three Spanish-language WAIS-III batteries from Mexico, Spain and Puerto Rico, and the US English-language WAIS-III battery.
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