What is the neuropsychological test?
Within the assessment of children’s learning disabilities, a directed neuropsychological study is essential. This study includes a series of psychological tests with which we evaluate different cognitive areas to determine and quantify their affectation and participation in the problem and at the same time to be able to program a personalized psychological and cognitive treatment.
When should it be performed?
A neuropsychological study should be performed in all patients with childhood learning delays, behavioral problems, attention deficit or hyperactivity, low academic performance, reading, writing or verbal comprehension problems or sensory integration problems. These tests should be targeted and personalized for each patient based on clinical suspicion and performed by professionals with experience in this field.
What aspects are evaluated?
Different cognitive areas such as total intellectual abilities, verbal and manipulative abilities, visual and auditory attention, working memory, language, vocabulary, reasoning, motor planning, executive functions, visuomotor and visuospatial functions, perceptual reasoning, auditory discrimination, visual, tactile and auditory gnosias, and motor and ideomotor praxias should be evaluated globally. Emotional and behavioral aspects, which may be primary or reactive and may be involved in cognitive performance or behavior, should also be assessed.
What problems should be identified?
These neuropsychological tests help us to delimit which cognitive areas are affected and which are not. This information is important in approaching a neuropsychological diagnosis. Different syndromes will result in different patterns of strengths and weaknesses in the tests.
The results provide us with very useful information, but it must be evaluated within a global context together with the rest of the patient’s clinical history and the relevant complementary tests. We should not confuse the elaboration of a neuropsychological profile with a complete clinical diagnosis.
The tests help us to evaluate different syndromes such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), simple learning delays, language delays, dyslexias, dysgraphias, dyscalculias, speech and language disorders or developmental dyspraxias.
More information:
www.neuronae.net
www.ucnmadrid.org