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Neuropsychological Assessment and Psychological Assessment               


Clinical Psychology Associates of North Central Florida     CPANCF.COM | Gainesville - Ocala | (352) 336-2888 

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Ernest J. Bordini, Ph.D. Licensed Psychologist, Specializing in Pediatric and Adult, Clinical and Forensic Neuropsychological Assessment.



 Gainesville Florida Pink flower   Ernest J. Bordini, Ph.D. all rights reservedClinical Psychology Associates of North Central Florida has a more than 30-year tradition of providing comprehensive psychological and neuropsychological assessments of adults, adolescents and children.

Neuropsychological assessment involves the integration of neuropsychological testing, neurodiagnostic and medical history, behavioral observations, mental and neurobehavioral examination, history and records to arrive at objective determinations of how well a person's brain is working and how it affects their cognitive functioning. This method uses standardized measures that are linked to brain function and sophisticated evaluations also assess levels of motivation and effort. The assessment also evaluates the person's mood and personality, considers co-existing disorders and integrates this into a formal report.

Neuropsychological testing and assessment describe and provide an understanding of strengths and weaknesses in neurocognitive functions and the relationships between their neuropsychological findings and their medical and psychiatric condition.

While often time-consuming and costly, careful and comprehensive neuropsychological evaluations are important because they can help identify the presence, nature, and severity of cognitive dysfunction, a baseline to monitor future changes in cognitive abilities, mood, and personality, track recovery from brain injuries, and help assess the efficacy of medications or other treatment interventions. 

Many times, neurological lesions are unseen, may resolve, or remain unclear or unseen even with modern neuroimaging, or other neurological studies. Generally, the reliability and validity of psychological or neuropsychological testing is limited in briefer on-line or in-person "screening" or brief assessments. One of the advantages of adult or pediatric neuropsychological assessment is the detection and evaluation of cerebral dysfunction in the absence of clear anatomical evidence of alterations that may otherwise be dismissed as "normal", psychiatric, or left untreated. A comprehensive neuropsychological also considers psychological factors such as depression that contribute to cognitive dysfunction or which may complicate daily neurocognitive functioning and performance. 

We can assist with performing evaluations of intelligence (IQ), personality, adjustment, learning disabilities, memory problem, dementia, language skills, nonverbal skills, sensory and motor skills, executive functions, and the neuropsychological consequences of stroke, anoxia, neurological illnesses and injuries.  We perform evaluations of brain injury, effects of toxic exposure on the brain, effects of medication, effects of substance abuse or overdose, and offer pediatric neuropsychological assessment of childhood brain injuries and neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD, autism spectrum disorders, and learning disabilities.  We offer evaluations of dementia, multiple sclerosis, stroke, and pre-surgical evaluations. 

Neuropsychological assessments performed as part of fitness for duty evaluations are also used to assess readiness to return to work in safety-sensitive positions, competencies involving adult independent living skills involving health and safety, judgment, financial management and driving, or for determining further treatment needs or outcomes after a brain injury or neurologic illness.

Assessment involves administering and interpreting psychological tests and integrating this with current and past symptoms, observations, information about developmental, biological, social, educational, and life experiences.  See our general services page for further description of our approach and philosophy on assessment.

Neuropsychological assessment (sometimes abbreviated as "neuropsych" assessment) is often needed for diagnostic reasons, determinations of impairment or consequences of illness or injury, and when there are changes or concerns about functioning or competency.  Neuropsychological assessment is often sensitive at picking up on neurological illness or disturbances in neurological status before these are apparent on routine neurological examination, screening measures such as the MMSE, or neuroimaging such as CT, SPECT, PET, or MRI scans (though are not a substitute for these or neurological consultation).  Neuropsychological assessment also allows for an understanding of the behavioral, cognitive, emotional, and functional impact of structural findings which may be present on these neurological tests.

Our staff have more than 30 years of experience in teaching or supervising the administration and or interpretation of psychological tests, conducting evaluations, have been involved in test development and research on psychological and neuropsychological tests, and have consulted in international medication trials. We offer expert witness forensic evaluations in personal injury, disability, and criminal homicide cases.  By arrangement, IMEs may be conducted out-of-town.

Due to our focus on psychodiagnostics and assessments that our psychologists provide in the North Florida region, we have an extensive collection of psychological and neuropsychological tests for preschool children, school-age children, adolescents, adults and seniors. 

Please beware that in the State of Florida, only licensed psychologists may perform or describe their testing or evaluations as psychological or neuropsychological. This is to protect the public from misuse by less qualified individuals since testing involves important judgments that may have an impact on your treatment or decisions made about you. Beware of people trying to get around this by describing psychological testing by other terms.

Our extensive experience with neuropsychological and psychological testing and assessment includes experience with commonly used psychological and neuropsychological tests such as the following list which includes an expanded Halstead-Reitan neuropsychological test battery only a partial list):

Personality, Psychiatric and Adjustment

These tests examine for major depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, somatoform disorders as well as personality traits such as histrionic, antisocial, borderline, paranoid, and schizoid disorders. Some have validity scales which help assess response bias and/or malingering as well as efforts to appear unreasonably virtuous. Children and Adult Manifest Anxiety Scales, Detailed Assessment of Posttraumatic Stress, Adolescent Personality Scale (APS), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-2), Children's Apperception Test (CAT), Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI-2), Geriatric Depression Rating Scale, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2 and MMPI-Adolescent), Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI), Rorschach Inkblot Technique, Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blanks, Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI), Adult Manifest Anxiety Scale (AMAS), Differential Assessment of Post-Traumatic Stress (DAPS)

Visuoanalytic and Visuoconstructive

Beery Test of Visual Motor Integration (VMI), Bender-Gestalt, Benton Facial Recognition Test (BFRT), Benton Judgment of Line Orientation (BJOLO), Benton Visual Form Discrimination Test (BVFD), Hooper Visual Organization Test (HVOT), Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure (RCFT)

Language and Related Skills

These tests are designed to assess verbal fluency, naming, receptive and expressive language skills, as well as auditory processing and comprehension. Boston Naming Test (BNT), WJ-IV Tests of Language, Clinical Evaluation of Language Functioning (CELF), Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT), Multilingual Aphasia Examination, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), Reitan-Indiana Aphasia Screening Test (RIAST), Test of Adolescent Language (TOAL), Test of Written Language (TOWL), Token Test, Neuropsychological Assessment Battery Naming Test

Memory and Learning

California Verbal Learning Test  (CVLT-3, Continuous Visual Memory Test (CVMT), Mattis Dementia Rating Scale (MDRS), Memory Assessment Scale (MAS), Rey Verbal Learning Test (RVLT), Memory for Designs, Tests of Memory and Learning (TOMAL), Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS-III and IV), Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning (WRAML-2), Continuous Visual Memory Test (CVMT), Children's Verbal Learning Test

Validity

These tests are designed to assess effort, validity of memory and neuropsychological tests, response bias, and suboptimal effort. In addition, many neuropsychological tests have built-in measures or scales which help assess validity and effort. Tests of Neuropsychological Malingering (TNM-Memory), Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM), Rey Fifteen Item Test, Green's Word Memory Test (WMT), Victoria Symptom Validity Test, Rey 15-Item Test represent a range of performance validity tests (PVT) used for this purpose.  Other tests such as the MMPI-2 and PAI include scales which examine for response bias in responding to self-report inventories and Symptom Validity Tests (SVT) such as the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptoms (SIMS) may be helpful for assessing atypical psychiatric, cognitive or memory complaints.

Reasoning

Category Test (CT), Wisconsin Card Sort Test (WCST) , Tower of London, 

Behavioral Rating Scales

Conners Rating Scales - Revised (CPRS and CTRS), Parenting Stress Inventory (PSI), Revised Behavior Problem Checklist (RBPC), Adaptive Behavior Assessment System (ABAS-II), Gilliam Asperger’s Disorders Scale (GADS), Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (GARS), Clinical Assessment of Behavior (CAB)

Attention and Related Abilities

Continuous Performance Test (CPT), GFW Test of Selective Auditory Attention, Seashore Rhythm Test (SRT), Speech Sounds Perception Test (SSPT), Tests of Variables of Attention (TOVA)

Sensory, Motor, Coordination and Related Skills

Grip Strength, Finger Oscillation, Grooved Pegboard, Luria Figures and Motor Sequences, Reitan-Klove Lateral Dominance Examination (RKLDE), Reitan-Klove Sensory-Perceptual Examination, Tactual Performance Test (TPT)

Competency and Adaptive Functioning

Adaptive Behavior Assessment System (ABAS-II and ABAS 3) Human Activity Profile (HAP), Independent Living Scale (ILS), Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale, 

Occupational/Career:

Sales Predictor Inventory, Self Directed Search (SDS)

Autism Spectrum Disorder  

Social Responsiveness Scale -2 (SRS), Autism Spectrum Quotient (ASQ), ADOS, ACS Social Perception Scales, Gilliam Asperger's Scales (GAS), Gilliam Autism Disorder Scale (GADS), Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS-2), Advanced Clinical Systems Social Perception Scales.

Health and Medical

Millon Behavioral Medicine Diagnostic (MBMD), Battery for Health Improvement (BHI)

Executive Function and Misc. Neuropsychological Tests

Stroop Interference Procedure (SIP), Trail Making Test (TMT), Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function® (BRIEF®) 

Cognitive and Achievement 

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale - IV (WAIS-IV), Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-IV and WISC-V), Wechsler Primary Preschool Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI-IV), Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT-4), Woodcock-Johnson Achievement Battery (WJ-III and WJ-IV), Woodcock-Johnson Cognitive Battery (WJ-III, WJ-IV).  Brief screening measures include the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (KBIT-2)

Visit our NEUROPSYCHOLOGYCENTRAL.COM Website which features a Forum for Neuropsychology Discussion Topics for Professionals and the Public.

Visit our Pediatric Neuropsychology and pediatric neuropsychologist websites or pediatric neuropsychology webpage for more information of Pediatric Neuropsychology. Visit our forensic-neuropsychology.com website for more information about Dr. Bordini's expert witness experience and services,  Our neuropsychology assessment website also provides more information.

 
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