Predicting Premorbid Ability in African American Elders

Researchers and clinicians require a method of estimating an elderly individual’s premorbid ability level in order to determine the amount of cognitive decline that has occurred. This issue has received a great deal of attention within the research literature; however little attention has been paid to this issue specifically in elderly African American elderly adults. Although researchers have examined the predictive utility of demographic variables few studies have examined whether including additional demographic variables (i.e. quality of education) improves prediction of premorbid ability. The current sample consisted of 46 African American elderly adults who did not exhibit any cognitive impairment or neurological disorders. Using correlation analysis a number of significant relationships were found between quality and type of education variables and full scale IQ scores. Although results suggest that including some quality of education variables may slightly improve the ability to predict premorbid ability in African American elders reading level emerged as the strongest predictor of full-scale IQ.