The relative performance of Kaufman's (Kaufman, 1990; Kaufman & Ishikuma, 1989) dyad, triad, and tetrad subtest-reduction short forms of the WAIS-R was evaluated for a group of 100 psychiatric inpatients. Kaufman's triad, which consists of Information, Picture Completion, and Digit Span, was judged superior, based on its brief administration time, ease of scoring, reliability, and predictive accuracy. The Kaufman triad also was compared with the Silverstein (1982) and the Reynolds, Willson, and Clark (Reynolds, Willson, & Clark, 1983; Silverstein, 1990b) tetrads and performed just as well as, if not better than, both of these short forms on all of the evaluative criteria.