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What Is the WAIS-5?

A plain-language guide to the WAIS-5, the most widely used adult intelligence test, for anyone making sense of their own report or a family member’s.

The WAIS-5 is the current version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, an individually administered test that a qualified examiner uses to measure thinking and reasoning in people aged 16 and older. A full report can run many pages and many numbers. This section takes those numbers one guide at a time, so you can find the part of the report in front of you and read just that part, whether the report is your own or a family member’s.

What You’ll Find Here

Your overall scores

• Full Scale IQ: the single number that summarizes ability across the whole test, and what it does and does not capture.
• Full Scale IQ vs General Ability Index: how to read two big numbers when they do not match.

The five index scores

• Verbal Comprehension Index: reasoning with words, knowledge, and ideas.
• Visual Spatial Index: working with visual detail and spatial relationships.
• Fluid Reasoning Index: spotting patterns and solving new problems.
• Working Memory Index: holding and using information in the moment.
• Processing Speed Index: how quickly simple visual information is taken in and acted on.

Going deeper

• The WAIS-5 subtests: the individual tasks that the index scores are built from.

How This Connects

The WAIS-5 measures thinking and reasoning, which is one part of a typical assessment. To see where these cognitive scores sit alongside the achievement and other scores in a report, start with understanding your assessment scores. If the report also names a condition, understanding a diagnosis explains what that part of the picture does and does not say.