William D. MacInnes

A Cross-Validation of a Booklet Form of the Category Test.

Abstract The practice of employing neuropsychological technicians dates back to the very establishment of clinical neuropsychology as a profession. The utilization of technicians affords the neuropsychologist with optimal standardization, reliability, and validity of the assessment process. Moreover, the practice is highly cost-effective and efficient. However, recent efforts by some state psychology associations, state psychology boards, and third-party health care providers have attempted to supplant or eliminate this practice. The purposes of this paper are as follows: (1) to review the historical, professional, and legal precedents for utilizing technicians; (2) to delineate the rationale for their deployment; (3) to examine current deployment patterns; and, (4) to provide some working professional guidelines for the training and utilization of neuropsychology technicians.

Aging and performance on the luria-nebraska neuropsychological Battery

The Luria-Nebraska Battery has been shown to be a valid measure of neuropsychological functioning in younger adults; however, little validity research with the elderly has been reported. Seventy-eight healthy elderly adults (mean age = 72.2 years) were tested with the Luria-Nebraska Battery and 92% of the profiles were found to be within normal limits. Significant age-related effects were also found on the Luria-Nebraska Battery. Similarly, the healthy elderly were divided into two age groups, young-old (60-74) and old-old (75+). Only the expressive speech and writing scales showed significant differences, and these were in the opposite direction one might expect, in that the old-old group performed significantly better. Additionally, the performance of 100 elderly brain damaged patients (mean age = 68 years) was examined and 86% of the profiles indicated the presence of brain damage. Overall, this study suggests that the Luria-Nebraska Battery may be a useful measure of neuropsychological functioning in elderly groups.

Order effects in the administration of the Booklet Category Test and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test.

In order to evaluate the possibility of significant order effects, the Booklet Category Test and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test were administered in counterbalanced order to 20 psychiatric patients, 36 neurological patients, and 30 healthy, elderly individuals. Administering the Booklet Category Test first improved scores on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, although not to a statistically significant degree. Unexpectedly administering the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test first resulted in poorer scores on the Booklet Category Test. The results are discussed in terms of future research and clinical implications.

Aging, regional cerebral blood flow, and neuropsychological functioning.

Previous studies found changes in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) patterns related to both age and various cognitive tasks. However, no study has yet demonstrated a relationship between rCBF and performance on the Luria‐Nebraska Neuropsychological Battery (LNNB) in an elderly group. Seventy‐nine elderly volunteers (56–88 years old), both healthy and demented, underwent the 133xenon inhalation rCBF procedure and were given the LNNB. The decrements in the gray‐matter blood flow paralleled decrements in performance on the LNNB. Using partial correlations, a significant proportion of shared variance was observed between gray‐matter blood flow and the LNNB scales. However, there was much less of a relationship between white‐matter blood flow and performance on the LNNB. This study suggests that even within a restricted age sample rCBF is related in a global way to neuropsychological functioning.

Relationships Between the Booklet Category Test and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

This study compares total errors on the Booklet Form of the Category Test (DeFilippis, McCampbell & Rogers, 1979) with several scores of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (Heaton, 1981). In a heterogeneous sample of 30 neurologically impaired patients and 31 normal individuals the two tests exhibited a maximum correlation of 0.52 when partialing out the effects of age and education. In addition, this study suggests that the two exhibit similar overall diagnostic hit rates; however, they differ in false negatives and false positives. These results bring into question the assumption that these two neuropsychological tests are interchangeable. A need to recognize the nature of the differences between the tests in their clinical applications and in future research is discussed.

Neuropsychological performance in schizophrenics with histories of substance abuse.

Both schizophrenia and substance abuse have been associated with cerebral impairment, although the neuro psychological performance of schizophrenic patients with substance abuse histories has not been examined. In this study, the Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological Battery was administered to schizophrenic patients with or without histories of substance abuse. The study found that the schizophrenics without substance abuse histories showed evidence of cerebral dysfunction, while those schizophrenics with histories of substance abuse could not be differentiated from normal.