Psychological Assessment
Psychological assessment is the administration of psychological tests by trained evaluators to measure individual differences in specific constructs, such as aspects of personality or intelligence. It is a process that involves gathering and integrating information from multiple sources, such as information from clinical interviews, tests of normal and abnormal personality, tests of ability or intelligence, and tests of interests or attitudes. Collateral information is also collected about personal, occupational, or medical history, such as from records or from interviews with the person being assessed, parents, spouses, teachers, or previous therapists or physicians.
There are several broad categories of psychological tests:
Academic achievement tests are designed to be administered by a trained evaluator to an individual or a group of people. During achievement tests, a series of test items is presented to the person being evaluated. A score on a test is believed to reflect achievement in a school subject.
Clinical tests are used to measure aspects of personality or, in some cases, the presence of symptoms of possible psychopathology.
Neuropsychological evaluation is an assessment of how one’s brain functions, which indirectly yields information about the structural and functional integrity of your brain. The neuropsychological evaluation involves an interview and the administration of tests. The tests are typically pencil and paper type tests. Some tasks might be self-reports meaning that they are completed by the client with assistance from a technician, but the majority of the tests require administration by a psychologist or trained, skilled psychometrist.
Neuropsychological tests evaluate functioning in a number of areas including: intelligence, executive functions (such as planning, abstraction, conceptualization), attention, memory, language, perception, sensorimotor functions, motivation, mood state and emotion, quality of life, and personality styles. The areas addressed in an individual’s evaluation are determined by the referral question (what the referring doctor and patient wants to know), patient’s complaints and symptoms, and observations made during interview and test administration.
Neuropsychological tests are standardized, meaning that they are given in the same manner to all clients and scored in a similar manner time after time. An individual’s scores on tests are interpreted by comparing their score to that of healthy individuals of a similar demographic background (i.e., of similar age, education, gender, and/or ethnic background) and to expected levels of functioning. In this way, a neuropsychologist can determine whether one’s performance on any given task represents a strength or weakness. Although individual scores are important, the neuropsychologist looks at all the data from the evaluation to determine a pattern of cognitive strengths and weaknesses and, in turn, to understand more about how the brain is functioning.
A complete evaluation generally takes between two and five hours to complete, but can take up to eight hours, depending on the complexity of the issues to be addressed by the evaluation and the patient’s condition (for example, fatigue, confusion, and motor slowing can extend the time required for an evaluation). Occasionally, it is necessary to complete the evaluation over two or more sessions.
