title: Potential for interpretation disparities of Halstead-Reitan neuropsychological battery performances in a litigating sample.
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.
authors.affiliation: University at Albany, State University of New York, NY 12222, United States.
authors.forename: Christine L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Yantz
authors.forename: Brandon E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Gavett
authors.forename: Julie K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Lynch
authors.forename: Robert J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: McCaffrey
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000523:psychology*; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007603:Jurisprudence; D008297:Male; D008306:Malingering / Q000523:psychology*; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D015588:Observer Variation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index