Questioning the validity of international knowledge for understanding cognitive profile for rural South African population

Abstract

Cognitive assessment tests that were standardised in the US and UK continues to be used to assess South African populations, and those that are standardised in South Africa are standardised using urban populations. These facts draw a question to the validity of the cognitive assessments when administered in rural South African populations. A test battery was conducted, containing WAIS-IVSA, Stroop, Trail Making Test, Rey Osterrieth Complex Figure Test, Ray Auditory Verbal Learning Test, Controlled Oral Word Association Test, Wechsler Card Sorting Test, Logic Memory and One Minutes Maths. Construct validity of South African standardised test (WAIS-IVSA) was therefore assessed with the use of Confirmatory Factor Analysis, and the results stipulated that the WAIS-IVSA structure was not measuring what it is supposed to. Thus further analysis on individually selected measures was done. The effects of Language, Education, Age and gender were also assessed with the use of Spearmen correlation.