Normative Data for Rey's Auditory Verbal Learning Test in Individuals with Schizophrenia

Badcock, Johanna C.
Dragović, Milan
Dawson, Lisa
Jones, Rochelle

¹School of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
²Centre for Clinical Research in Neuropsychiatry/Graylands Hospital, Claremont, WA, Australia

Corresponding author at: School of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Perth, WA 6009, Australia. Tel.: +61-08-9347-6429; fax: +61-08-9384-5128. E-mail address:[email protected] (J.C. Badcock).

Accepted January 15, 2011

Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology 26(3):p 205-213, April 2011. | DOI: 10.1093/arclin/acr005

Deficits in episodic memory, related to medial temporal lobe dysfunction, are a core component of schizophrenia. Rey's Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) is one of the most widely used neuropsychological memory tasks in clinical practice but normative data are limited. Over the last 15 years, the RAVLT has been used to assess verbal episodic memory performance as part of the Western Australian Family Study of Schizophrenia (WAFSS). This study aims to provide RAVLT norms, derived from the WAFSS, for individuals meeting DSM-IV and ICD-10 diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia or schizophrenia-spectrum disorder, for use in clinical settings. Performance on three immediate and one delayed recall trials, and additional measures of encoding and forgetting, is presented for 492 patients and 260 healthy community controls. Results indicated that age and sex (both groups) and IQ (schizophrenia group only) significantly influenced performance. Norms are presented, as means and standard deviations, stratified accordingly. Additional between-groups analysis clearly shows a significant memory deficit in schizophrenia even when patients are matched on IQ, age, and sex with healthy controls.