Psychoeducational and Neuropsychological Assessment Flashcards
Psychodiagnostic assessment
Process of gathering and interpreting data to better understand a client’s psychological functioning. Leads to psychotherapy and/or psychiatric medication.
Psychoeducational assessment
Process of gathering and interpreting data to better understand a client’s educational functioning. Leads to accommodations or intervention strategies, may include medication.
Neuropsychological assessment
Process of gathering and interpreting data to better understand a client’s neuropsychological functioning. Includes brain functioning, memory tests, etc. Leads to accommodations or intervention strategies, may include medication.
Common assessment measures
- Cognitive functioning: measure overall cognitive ability (IQ) and areas of cognitive strengths/functioning.
- Academic achievement
- Memory functioning
- Visual-motor integration
- Attention and impulsivity
Cognitive functioning
Measure overall cognitive ability (IQ) and areas of cognitive strengths/weakness.
IQ tests have a huge cultural bias for SES. The concept of the average IQ = 100 comes from a sample of white men. Many people in low SES ranges did not have parents at home to read to them, play with blocks, etc. which skewed their scores to appear that they were less intelligent (need to control for SES!)
The Full Scale IQ test is one of the most commonly used assessment measures for psychoeducational and neuropsychological assessment.
Full Scale IQ (FSIQ) Test
- Verbal IQ (VIQ): Includes verbal comprehension index (VCI) and working memory index (WMI)
a. VCI: Vocabulary, similarities, info, comprehension. This is the most culturally biased component of the FSIQ.
b. WMI: Arithmetic, digit span, letter-# sequencing - Performance IQ (PIQ): Includes perceptual organization index (POI) and processing speed index (PSI)
a. POI: Picture completion, block design matrix, matrix reasoning
b. PSI: digit-symbol coding, symbol search
Sample Item: “In what way are steam and rice alike?” client is just seeing clinician and iPad they are reading from. You can say “tell me more about that” when they provide an answer to potentially increase their score.
Questions start off easy and get increasingly hard (the point is not to get all ?’s right)
Culture bias
Comes up in any assessment measure we administer. It is an insidious issue. Appropriate translation to client’s language are necessary, must be assessed for reliability and validity. There are cultural differences in representations of mental health problems that can impact assessment. Cultures that are more open talking about mental health issues phrase them in cognitive and emotional terms. Other cultures may focus more on the somatic elements of mental health, such as racing heartbeat, tense muscles, etc. It is important to take patient’s unique life experiences into account, as this helps eliminate cultural bias.
Stereotype threat
The internalizing of a cultural stereotype measure that causes people to focus on their supposed inability which negatively impacts their performance.
Academic achievement
Measures learning in different academic domains. Used to diagnose learning disorders in reading, math and writing. Dyslexia is a learning disorder with impairment in reading (not formally diagnosed). These are often paired with IQ tests to additionally assess for cognitive functioning to ensure their cognitive abilities will allow them to learn at their grade level with support.
Academic achievement reading subtest
Client reads passages of increasing vocabulary and comprehensive difficulty aloud. Clinician notes flow, porosity, inflection, timing, checks for stumbling, and substituting one word for another to assess for reading ability and comprehension. Anxiety can skew test results, they should be interpreted with caution. Achievement tests go up through grade 12 - it is therefore difficult to diagnose learning disorders after grade school has been completed. Can take approx. 1.5 hours to complete.
Academic achievement math subtest
Client answers math problems read aloud by clinician. People are able to have the question reread once. Sample item: “Mad minute” of math problems, assesses math fluency.
Academic achievement writing subtest
Sample item: “Write a sentence using the following words: cat, girl, wandering”. Have to include all words, sentence must make sense. Clinician looks at handwriting, syntax, and cannot ask for words to be defined. It is important to test children early in the day (between 9 am - 12 pm) for peak performance. It is also better to take them out of school for 1 morning rather than multiple mornings in a row. Good to be aware of testing fatigue, have kids bring snacks, take short breaks, use a sticker chart for positive encouragement :)
Memory functioning
Examine areas of relative strengths/weaknesses in memory. Used to understand changes in memory after head injury. Assesses for visual and verbal memory, recall vs. cognition, and immediate vs. short term vs. long term. Useful for developing intervention plans for academic/occupational/home success. Sample item: reproduce the drawing (test of immediate recall). Can present 10 minutes later to test short-term memory, or a few days later to test long-term memory (degradation).
Visual Motor Integration (VMI)
Assesses a person’s ability to incorporate useful visual info into motor skills. Impacts coordination, handwriting, activities of daily living (gross motor skills)
Can be impacted by certain brain injuries. Goal is to assess problems and refer to occupational therapy (OT). Sample item: copy these drawings perfectly without erasing! Difficult to score - there are detailed scoring instructions, have to use a protractor, ruler, and assess confidence of pencil strokes.
Attention and impulsivity
Measures sustained attention, impulsivity, and set shifting (the ability to disengage from one activity to reengage in a completely different activity). Assesses ability to sustain attention (30 minute test), suppress impulsive responses/urges, and set shifting by switching halfway through. Conner’s test is the most reliable assessment measure for ADHD and impulsivity.
