How can Neuropsychological Evaluations help your clients and cases?
- Determine whether your client’s subjective cognitive complaints can be identified in an objective evaluation.
- Identify the extent of cognitive difficulties and treatment recommendations.
- Estimate the extent of cognitive decline through comparing current functions to premorbid estimates of functioning.
- Determine the validity of a client’s complaints through tests of effort and malingering.
- In civil cases, this may help a plaintiff’s cognitive difficulties be taken more seriously or help a defendant identify symptom exaggeration.
- In criminal cases, this may be important in a variety of ways that may include:
- assistance in determining a defendant’s competency to stand trial
- providing additional information about the capacity to appreciate the criminal nature of an act or to inhibit such acts.
How do I choose a Clinical Neuropsychologist and are there other professionals more appropriate to a forensic setting?
- You may click here to find a qualified neuropsychologist. Make sure you choose a ABPP Board Certified Neuropsychologist.
- ONLY a Clinical Neuropsychologist is competent to use neuropsychological tests.
- While a neurologist, psychiatrist, or other physician may be well qualified within their area of expertise, they are not qualified to interpret a neuropsychological test battery.
- The advantage of using a neuropsychologist is that they are experts at using objective tests to evaluate cognitive functions. Thus, their conclusions are based more on verifiable test data and less on their opinion.