Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST)

Purpose: Assess perseveration and abstract reasoning

Age: 6.5-89 years

Time: 20-30 minutes

Used primarily to assess perseveration and abstract thinking, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) is also considered a measure of executive function because of its reported sensitivity to frontal lobe dysfunction.

As such, the WCST allows you to assess your client’s strategic planning; organised searching; and ability to utilise environmental feedback to shift cognitive sets, direct behaviour toward achieving a goal, and modulate impulsive responding.

Four stimulus cards incorporate three stimulus parameters (colour, form, and number). Respondents are required to sort numbered response cards according to different principles and to alter their approach during test administration. To complete the task, clients should have normal or corrected vision and hearing sufficient to adequately comprehend the instructions and to visually discriminate the stimulus parameters.

• Completion of the WCST requires the ability to develop and maintain an appropriate problem-solving strategy across changing stimulus conditions in order to achieve a future goal.
• Unlike other measures of abstraction, the WCST provides objective measures of overall success and identifies particular sources of difficulty on the task (e.g., inefficient initial conceptualisation, perseveration, failure to maintain a cognitive set, inefficient learning across stages of the test).
• When used with more comprehensive ability testing, the WCST is helpful in discriminating frontal from non-frontal lesions.
• Raw score to normalized standard, percentile, and T-score conversions are provided.

Sample WCST Score Report

Administration and Scoring on PARiConnect: WCST/WCST-64