Potential for interpretation disparities of Halstead-Reitan neuropsychological battery performances in a litigating sample.

Full Abstract

The performances of 110 litigants on seven variables from the Halstead-Reitan neuropsychological battery (HRNB) were used to compare Heaton, Miller, Taylor, and Grant's (2004) Deficit Scale (DS) and Reitan and Wolfson's (1993) Neuropsychological Deficit Scale (NDS). Additional comparisons were made for people who passed or failed the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) to determine effects of effort on scores generated by either scoring system. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests revealed that all seven comparisons were significantly different for the full sample (p< or =0.001). The NDS indicated greater levels of impairment compared to DS across all variables. These findings were also obtained when considering effort, though TOMM failure was related to non-significant differences for two variables. These findings suggest that the two scoring systems are not equivalent, with Heaton et al.'s DS resulting in consistently higher identification rates of normal brain functioning compared to those generated from Reitan and Wolfson's NDS system.

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Author information

Author/s: Yantz, Christine L (CL); Gavett, Brandon E (BE); Lynch, Julie K (JK); McCaffrey, Robert J (RJ);

Affiliation: University at Albany, State University of New York, NY 12222, United States.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Case Reports; Comparative Study; Journal Article

Journal: Archives of clinical neuropsychology : the official journal of the National Academy of Neuropsychologists (Arch Clin Neuropsychol), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Dec; vol 21 (issue 8) : pp 809-17

Dates: Created 2006/11/13; Completed 2007/02/08;

PMID: 17023140, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Aged
Brain Injuries - psychology
Disability Evaluation
Female
Humans
Jurisprudence
Male

Male
Malingering - psychology
Memory Disorders - diagnosis; etiology
Middle Aged
Neuropsychological Tests
Observer Variation
Reproducibility of Results
Severity of Illness Index

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