Report of the 1989 Latin American Society of Neuropsychology meeting.

The First Latin American Congress of Neuropsychology was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in June, 1989. The activities covered included the following: (1) Methods for obtaining membership to the Latin American Society of Neuropsychology were devised, (2) a Board of Governors was elected, (3) the Revista Latinoamericana de Neuropsicologia (Latin American Journal of Neuropsychology) was created, (4) decisions about the Second Latin American Congress of Neuropsychology were made, (5) a history of neuropsychology in Latin America will be written, and (6) the Latin American Society of Neuropsychology will get in touch with the International Neuropsychological Society to propose joint future activities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neuropsychological aspects of multiple sclerosis

Since S. Rao's ["Neuropsychology of Multiple Sclerosis: A Critical Review," A Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, Vol. 85, pp. 503-542] (1986) seminal review, considerable research has been undertaken on the neuropsychological consequences of multiple sclerosis. This review incorporates the research literature of the last decade in presenting an overview of the current state of our knowledge concerning the etiology, course, symptoms, assessment, consequences, and treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS). The concept of subcortical dementia is revisited in light of the most recent literature documenting the neuropsychological deficits in patients with MS. The view that cognitively heterogeneous patient groups may disguise more specific patterns of focal neuropsychological impairment is considered. A critical review of the recent literature is also presented, detailing the degree to which recent research has addressed the areas of research need identified by Rao in 1986. Given recent advances in our knowledge, the need for more attention to be directed toward the evaluation of rehabilitation and psychological intervention is highlighted.     

Editorial policy for Neuropsychology.

With the publication of Neuropsychology by the Philadelphia Clinical Neuropsychology Group (PCNG) in 1987, it is hoped that PCNG will meet the growing need of practitioners and consumers for both practical and theoretical information regarding service delivery in clinical neuropsychology. In keeping with the PCNG tradition, the aim of Neuropsychology is education: to provide the readership with materials to improve the quality of service delivery to patients with diseases or disorders related to the central nervous system. Basic clinical research on memory, learning, perception, language, sensory-motor functioning and so on are welcome publications in Neuropsychology, as their findings fit well with clinical practice commitments. Case reports, scholarly review articles, reviews of books, software programs, and test materials, and announcements of upcoming events are also welcomed. The intent is to make Neuropsychology a scholarly refereed journal of PCNG and to include articles written not only by PCNG members but other interested individuals as well. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nelson M. Butters (1937–1995): Obituary.

Memorializes Nelson Butters (1937–1995), a clinical neuropsychologist who performed research in many areas, including cognitive deficits underlying human amnesia, amnesia with alcoholic Wernicke-Korsakoff's syndrome, Huntington's Disease, and amnestic functioning between pure amnesia and more pervasive dementia. Nelson published over 250 articles, books, and chapters in his 30-yr career. He also served as president of the International Neuropsychological Society, the National Academy of Neuropsychology, and the APA Division of Clinical Neuropsychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Clinical neuropsychology of intervention.

Reviews the book, Clinical neuropsycbology of intervention by Barbara Uzzell and Yigal Gross. Doctors Uzzell and Gross have performed a great service for the field of Neuropsychology by editing the volume which they entitle Clinical Neuropsychology of Intervention. They have succeeded in making the book a depiction of the state of the art of neuropsychological rehabilitation in 1986. The contributions, of uniformly high quality, are by individuals who are experienced in service delivery to the brain injured. The contributions reflect both an underlying concern with psychological theory and with principles of neuropsychology and reflect an effort by each author to analyze and codify his/her own experience so as to present it systematically to the reader. These efforts are all successful—some to such a degree that those chapters constitute superb, self-contained treatments of their topics. Surely, this coherence of approach and the high quality of the result have to reflect the skillful editing by Doctors Uzzell and Gross. The reviewer recommends this book as obligatory reading for anyone involved in the evaluation or treatment of brain damaged patients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some comments on the goals and direction of Neuropsychology.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 7(2) of Neuropsychology (see record 2008-10489-001). In this editorial, the name of the National Academy of Neuropsychology was misspelled. This was due to an incorrect change by the printer at a late stage in production, after the proofs were properly reviewed by the Editor.] This editorial discusses this first issue of Neuropsychology which was published under the official logo of the American Psychological Association (APA) and represents a major milestone for a rapidly growing discipline dedicated to the study of brain-behavior relationships in humans. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Some comments on the goals and direction of neuropsychology": Correction to editorial.

Reports an error in "Some comments on the goals and direction of Neuropsychology" by Nelson Butters (Neuropsychology, 1993[Jan], Vol 7[1], 3-4). In this editorial, the name of the National Academy of Neuropsychology was misspelled. This was due to an incorrect change by the printer at a late stage in production, after the proofs were properly reviewed by the Editor. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2008-10622-001.) This editorial discusses this first issue of Neuropsychology which was published under the official logo of the American Psychological Association (APA) and represents a major milestone for a rapidly growing discipline dedicated to the study of brain-behavior relationships in humans. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development and evaluation of validity scales for the Neuropsychology Behavior and Affect Profile: A dissembling study.

The Neuropsychology Behavior and Affect Profile ( NBAP) is a peer-rated inventory of behavioral and affective changes in brain injured individuals and consists of five Clinical Scales that have demonstrated strong external validity. A potential confound is the NBAP's susceptibility to rater bias. In the present investigation, four validity scales were developed and external validity and psychometric properties were examined through a dissembling paradigm. Study1 describes item selection and construction of the validity scales. Study 2 demonstrates that various combinations of both the clinical and validity scales effectively differentiated dissemblers from informants of two groups of traumatic brain injury patients. Although results differed somewhat when dissemblers were grouped according to their level of neuropsychological training, highly trained dissemblers (licensed clinical neuropsychologists) could be detected. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Charles G. Matthews.

Recognized as one of the foremost clinical neuropsychologists in the world, as evidenced by his election to the presidency of the International Neurological Society and to the presidency of American Psychological Association's Division 40, Charles G. Matthews has made outstanding contributions as an educator. He developed and has directed the foremost postdoctoral training program in clinical neuropsychology in the world and has established standards for the training of clinical neuropsychologists. He has also served as a member of the American Board of Clinical Neuropsychology since its inception in 1981 and has been one of its examiners for the same period of time. For his commitment and dedication to education and training and also to research and clinical work, Charles G. Matthews is honored. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical neuropsychology.

Clinical neuropsychology is a specialty of professional psychology that is based on knowledge of brain-behavior relationships and particularly abnormal brain functioning. In addition to specialized neurobehavioral evaluations, services provided by clinical neuropsychologists include interventions and consultation regarding persons with congenital and acquired brain disorders. Competent neuropsychological assessment relies on knowledge of clinical neuroscience, developmental changes, and appropriate tests and norms, and it requires skills in history taking and integration of behavioral, psychological, and neurological data. Training guidelines for this specialty, proposed by the 1997 Houston Conference on Specialty Education and Training in Clinical Neuropsychology, recommend that new practitioners have acquired advanced knowledge of brain-behavior relationships and have completed a 2-year postdoctoral residency that provides relevant supervised clinical experience. Future challenges facing clinical neuropsychology include increasing the number of appropriately credentialed practitioners, creating a role as providers of functional neuroimaging procedures, preserving test security in forensic evaluations, and adapting tests for demographic and language differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neuropsychology and imaging.

Introduces this special of issue of Neuropsychology, the theme of which is Neuropsychology and Imaging. The question for neuropsychology is no longer how to locate the lesions, but, rather, how to consistently relate neuropsychological dysfunctionings with the image of the lesion. Both questions are easier to answer when lesions are better circumscribed. Answers are more difficult in the presence of multiple, diffuse, or subcortical lesions. In order to address the more difficult questions, this issue includes papers by Levin and High, Wilson et al., Wiednann et al., and Jernigan and Butters which are devoted to challenging clinical diseases (head injury, Alzheimer's, and Huntington's) where lesions and dysfunctionings are not consistently defined. Interestingly, some disease-related correlations emerge from these papers, and SPECT data are viewed as well. Correlating neuropsychological and imaging measurements is both unbounded and restrained. Papers in this special issue on Neuropsychology and Imaging highlight this, and the issues and concerns for future investigations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cross-validiation of the Neuropsychology Behavior and Affect Profile in stroke patients.

Internal stability and discriminant validity of the Neuropsychology Behavior and Affect Profile (L. Nelson et al, 1989) were examined in samples of 70 stroke patients and 88 elderly controls. The test is designed to yield indices of premorbid (before-item subset) and present (now-item subset) levels of emotional functioning in each of 5 scales. With coefficient alphas ranging from .76 to .87, results indicated moderate to high internal stability. The test was also able to reliably distinguish between the criterion stroke sample (n?=?42) and a matched group of elderly controls in terms of present levels of emotional functioning (2 wks poststroke). When discriminant validity was examined in terms of premorbid emotional status (before-item subset), group differences were unexpectedly obtained. Clinical and research implications of these results are discussed, noting the possibility of early, noncognitive correlates preceding stroke. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A response to Shealy, Cramer, and Pirelli's "Third party presence during criminal forensic evaluations: Psychologists' opinions, attitudes, and practices".

I provide my position on third-party observation in criminal forensic assessments studied by C. Shealy, R. Cramer, and G. Pirelli (see record 2008-17522-001), comment on the traditional authority reflected by the study, note the statements on the issue by the Committee on Psychological Tests and Assessment (2007) and the American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology (2001) and the proposed third draft of the Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychology by the Committee on the Revision of the Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychology (2008), and offer a rationale for allowing observation. The study by Shealy, Cramer, and Pirelli documented traditional authority on observation in forensic assessment, not evidence-based practice. Because there is scant data of the effects of observation on outcomes, in order to define evidence-based practice and inform the reality of assessments that are observed, psychologists should research the effects of third-party observation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relation of the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Battery to ratings of everyday functioning in a geriatric sample.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 6(4) of Neuropsychology (see record 2010-02486-001). This article presented different data analyses obtained from the sample also described in "The Relation of the Halstead- Reitan Neuropsychological Battery to Functional Daily Living Skills in Geriatric Patients" by Edwin J. Dunn, H. Russell Searight, Thomas Grisso, Ronald B. Margolis, and Judith L. Gibbons (Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 1990, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 103-117). The two papers described distinct approaches to competence assessment, using the sample. The 1990 paper described the Community Competence Scale, a test administered directly to the patient to assess daily living abilities, while the 1989 paper described data from the Scale of Competence in Independent Living Skills, an interview rating scale administered to a third party knowledgeable about the patient's living abilities. The 1990 paper was both submitted and published prior to the 1989 paper. Cross-references between the papers and footnotes about being based on the same sample were previously omitted.] Examined the relation between neuropsychological functioning, measured by the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery, and daily living ability, assessed by the Scale of Competence in Independent Living Skills (SCILS) completed by a significant other. Ss were 40 geriatric patients (mean age 69.6 yrs) referred for suspected dementia. Results suggest that neuropsychological tests were moderately predictive of daily living skills. Four of the neuropsychological subtests (Speech Sounds Perception, Seashore Rhythm, Tactual Performance—Memory, and Finger Tapping—Dominant Hand) were found to be most strongly associated with daily living skills. Data suggest that although a global relation between the 2 domains exists, predictions about specific daily living skills may be unwarranted. The limitations of significant others' ratings of patients' functioning and of the SCILS are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Editorial.

Briefly describes a new feature (open peer commentary) introduced in this issue of Neuropsychology and reviews some other features available to journal subscribers, readers, and contributors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

WAIS and MMPI correlates of the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychology Battery in normal male subjects

Two groups, each consisting of 24 normal young men, were given the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychology Battery and additional tests of intellectual and personality functioning, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale, and the Cornell Medical Index. The test (and subtest) scores were intercorrelated. No significant correlations were found between any of the personality tests and any of the subtests of the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychology Battery. Most of the WAIS measures likewise failed to correlate with the Halstead-Reitan measures in the two samples. The exceptions were the Digit Span and Block Design subtests and the Performance Scale IG score on the WAIS which did correlate with some of the subtests from the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychology Battery. The findings with normal subjects reported in this paper, in contrast with findings with psychopathological and brain-damaged groups of subjects reported by others, indicate that for Ss in the top half of the population in education and WAIS FSIQ, individual differences in scores on the WAIS, the MMPI, TMAS, and CMI do not materially influence performance on the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychology Battery Measures.     

"Summary of Journal Operations": Erratum.

Reports an error in the "Summary of Journal Operations" (American Psychologist, 1970, 25, 103); (see record 2005-10282-014). The rejection rate shown for the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology is incorrect. The correct figure is 67%. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)