What Is the RIAS Test? The Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scales Explained

The RIAS-2, formally the "Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scales, Second Edition," is an individually administered IQ test published by PAR for ages 3 to 94. A psychologist gives it one-on-one, and its core intelligence battery takes only about 20 to 25 minutes, far less than a full Wechsler test. It reports verbal, nonverbal, and composite intelligence indexes on the familiar IQ scale with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, with optional memory and processing speed measures on top.

The test was designed by psychologists Cecil R. Reynolds and Randy W. Kamphaus and first appeared in this second edition in 2015. It contains eight subtests organized into three groups.

• Intelligence subtests: Guess What and Verbal Reasoning measure verbal ability; Odd-Item Out and What's Missing measure nonverbal reasoning. These four form the core battery.

• Memory subtests: Verbal Memory and Nonverbal Memory combine into a Composite Memory Index, which PAR describes as a reliable assessment of working memory.

• Speeded processing subtests: The Speeded Naming Task and Speeded Picture Search are new in the second edition and were built to require minimal reliance on motor skills.

Scores roll up into five indexes: the Verbal Intelligence Index (VIX), Nonverbal Intelligence Index (NIX), Composite Intelligence Index (CIX), Composite Memory Index (CMX), and Speeded Processing Index (SPI). PAR's interpretive materials describe the CIX as a measure of general intelligence, or "g," built from the two abilities that matter most in modern intelligence research: fluid reasoning and verbal, or crystallized, ability.

Each index is an age-corrected standard score with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, the same metric used by nearly every major IQ test. Subtests are reported as T scores, and index scores come with percentile ranks and confidence intervals. If you want a refresher on what those numbers mean in practice, our guide to the Stanford-Binet test covers how standard scores became the industry norm.

The original 2015 norms were built on 2,154 people ages 3 to 94 from 32 states, matched to U.S. Census proportions. PAR has since released a Normative Update (the RIAS-2 NU) that renorms the test on 2,793 cases matched to 2023 Census data, so scores are anchored to a current population. PAR reports internal consistency above .90 for the indexes across age groups, and criterion validity studies showing strong correlations with the WISC-IV, WAIS-IV, and WPPSI.

The obvious comparison is with the Wechsler family, since the WISC dominates school-age testing and the WAIS dominates adult testing. The RIAS-2 competes on two design choices. First, speed: the core battery takes about 20 to 25 minutes, and even all eight subtests fit inside an hour. Second, purity: the core intelligence indexes deliberately exclude timed motor tasks, which the authors argue produces a cleaner estimate of general intelligence for people whose hands are slower than their minds. In the Wechsler full-scale score, processing speed is baked in; in the RIAS-2 it is an optional index reported separately.

One caution: no published correlation links the RIAS-2 to the current Stanford-Binet, so comparisons to that test are about shared structure and scale, and nothing more specific.

• Gifted programs: Its short administration time makes it popular for gifted-and-talented screening and identification in schools.

• Disability eligibility: It supports ability-achievement discrepancy analysis for learning disability evaluations, and its low motor demands suit examinees with physical impairments.

• Clinical practice: The standardization sample included twelve clinical groups, among them stroke, dementia, traumatic brain injury, ADHD, and hearing impairment, and the test spans the lifespan to age 94.

There is also a companion screener, the RIST-2, which estimates general ability from two subtests in under 15 minutes, filling the same brief-test role as the KBIT.

Not on your own. The RIAS-2 is a qualification level C instrument, which means only appropriately credentialed professionals can purchase and administer it, and scoring for the current edition runs through PAR's digital platform. If you simply want a rigorous measure of your own reasoning ability without booking a clinical appointment, you can take the RIOT IQ test, the Reasoning and Intelligence Online Test, which was built by psychometricians and normed on the same 100-point scale.

Yes. It is an individually administered, professionally normed intelligence test whose Composite Intelligence Index estimates general intelligence on the standard IQ scale with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.

The core intelligence battery takes about 20 to 25 minutes. Adding the memory and speeded processing subtests still keeps the full eight-subtest battery under an hour.

Ages 3 through 94, one of the widest ranges of any individually administered intelligence test.

Scores follow the normal curve: about two thirds of people land between 85 and 115, and roughly 130 or above is the threshold many gifted programs use.

PAR reports strong correlations between RIAS-2 indexes and the WISC-IV and WAIS-IV. The Wechsler tests sample a broader set of abilities; the RIAS-2 trades that breadth for speed and lower motor demands.

1. McNicholas, P. J., & Floyd, R. G. (2017). A review of the Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scales, Second Edition, and Reynolds Intellectual Screening Test, Second Edition. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 32(2), 176-180. doi.org/10.1177/0829573516673458

2. McCaffrey, R. J. (2016). A scientist/practitioner's perspective of the Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scales, Second Edition. Journal of Pediatric Neuropsychology, 2(3-4), 129-130. doi.org/10.1007/s40817-016-0016-x

3. Farmer, R. L., & Kim, S. Y. (2020). Difference score reliabilities within the RIAS-2 and WISC-V. Psychology in the Schools, 57(8), 1273-1288. doi.org/10.1002/pits.22369

4. Reynolds, C. R., & Kamphaus, R. W. (2015). Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scales, Second Edition (RIAS-2). PAR. parinc.com