Essentials of Executive Functions Assessment


Book Description

Written by experts in the area of executive functioning, Essentials of Executive Functions Assessment equips mental health practitioners (school, clinical, developmental/pediatric, neuropsychologists, educational diagnosticians, and educational therapists) with all the information they need to administer, score, and interpret assessment instruments that test for executive functions deficits associated with a number of psychiatric and developmental disorders.




Handbook of Executive Functioning


Book Description

Planning. Attention. Memory. Self-regulation. These and other core cognitive and behavioral operations of daily life comprise what we know as executive functioning (EF). But despite all we know, the concept has engendered multiple, often conflicting definitions and its components are sometimes loosely defined and poorly understood. The Handbook of Executive Functioning cuts through the confusion, analyzing both the whole and its parts in comprehensive, practical detail for scholar and clinician alike. Background chapters examine influential models of EF, tour the brain geography of the executive system and pose salient developmental questions. A section on practical implications relates early deficits in executive functioning to ADD and other disorders in children and considers autism and later-life dementias from an EF standpoint. Further chapters weigh the merits of widely used instruments for assessing executive functioning and review interventions for its enhancement, with special emphasis on children and adolescents. Featured in the Handbook: The development of hot and cool executive function in childhood and adolescence. A review of the use of executive function tasks in externalizing and internalizing disorders. Executive functioning as a mediator of age-related cognitive decline in adults. Treatment integrity in interventions that target executive function. Supporting and strengthening working memory in the classroom to enhance executive functioning. The Handbook of Executive Functioning is an essential resource for researchers, scientist-practitioners and graduate students in clinical child, school and educational psychology; child and adolescent psychiatry; neurobiology; developmental psychology; rehabilitation medicine/therapy and social work.




WAIS-IV, WMS-IV, and ACS


Book Description

This book provides users of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV) with information on applying the WAIS-IV, including additional indexes and information regarding use in special populations for advanced clinical use and interpretation. The book offers sophisticated users of the WAIS-IV and Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS-IV) guidelines on how to enhance the clinical applicability of these tests. The first section of the book provides an overview of the WAIS-IV, WMS-IV, and new Advanced Clinical Solutions for Use with the WAIS-IV/WMS-IV (ACS). In this section, examiners will learn: - Normal versus atypical score variability - Low-score prevalence in healthy adults versus clinical populations - Assessing whether poor performance reflects a decline in function or is the result of suboptimal effort New social cognition measures found in the ACS are also presented. The second part focuses on applying the topics in the first section to specific clinical conditions, including recommended protocols for specific clientele (e.g. using demographically adjusted norms when evaluating individuals with brain injury). Common clinical conditions are discussed, including Alzheimer's disease, mild cognitive impairment, traumatic brain injury, and more. Each chapter provides case examples applying all three test batteries and using report examples as they are obtained from the scoring assistant. Finally, the use of the WAIS-IV/WMS-IV and the ACS in forensic settings is presented. - Coverage of administration and scoring of WAIS-IV, WMS-IV and ACS - Information contained on the use of WAIS-IV with special populations - Case studies in each chapter - Written by the creators of WAIS-IV, WMS-IV and ACS




Essentials of School Neuropsychological Assessment


Book Description

Provides a current overview of neuropsychological practice in schools, written by a leading school psychologist With neuropsychological assessment more widely used in school settings than ever before, school psychologists require greater knowledge of both the discipline and its application within the school environment. Written by a leading expert in school neuropsychology, Essentials of School Neuropsychological Assessment is a practical resource providing learning specialists and school psychologists with clear coverage and vital information on this evolving area of practice within school psychology. Like all the volumes in the Essentials of Psychological Assessment series, this book is designed to help mental health professionals quickly acquire the knowledge and skills they need to make optimal use of major psychological assessment instruments. Each concise chapter features numerous callout boxes highlighting key concepts, bulleted points, and extensive illustrative material, as well as test questions that help you gauge and reinforceyour grasp of the information covered. Essentials of School Neuropsychological Assessment provides the most current, concise overview of all aspects of neuropsychological practice in schools and explains how to identify the need for testing, conduct a neurodevelopmental history, select appropriate assessment instruments, effectively evaluate students, and accurately interpret results. In addition to presenting a unique model of applying neuropsychological assessment principles in school settings in chapter 4, this valuable book includes case studies and practice examples. Other titles in the Essentials of Psychological Assessment series: Essentials of Assessment Report Writing Essentials of Processing Assessment Essentials of Stanford-Binet (SB5) Assessment Essentials of WISC?-IV Assessment Essentials of WIAT?-II and KTEA-II Assessment Essentials of WJ III Cognitive Abilities Assessment Essentials of WJ III Tests of Achievement Assessment Essentials of WPPSI-III Assessment Essentials of Cross-Battery Assessment, Second Edition Essentials of KABC-II Assessment Essentials of NEPSY? Assessment Essentials of WMS?-III Assessment Visit us on the Web at: www.wiley.com/essentials




Working Memory Capacity


Book Description

The idea of one's memory "filling up" is a humorous misconception of how memory in general is thought to work; it actually has no capacity limit. However, the idea of a "full brain" makes more sense with reference to working memory, which is the limited amount of information a person can hold temporarily in an especially accessible form for use in the completion of almost any challenging cognitive task. This groundbreaking book explains the evidence supporting Cowan's theoretical proposal about working memory capacity, and compares it to competing perspectives. Cognitive psychologists profoundly disagree on how working memory is limited: whether by the number of units that can be retained (and, if so, what kind of units and how many), the types of interfering material, the time that has elapsed, some combination of these mechanisms, or none of them. The book assesses these hypotheses and examines explanations of why capacity limits occur, including vivid biological, cognitive, and evolutionary accounts. The book concludes with a discussion of the practical importance of capacity limits in daily life. This 10th anniversary Classic Edition will continue to be accessible to a wide range of readers and serve as an invaluable reference for all memory researchers.




The Boston Process Approach to Neuropsychological Assessment


Book Description

The Boston Process Approach to neuropsychological assessment, advanced by Edith Kaplan, has a long and well-respected history in the field. However, its theoretical and empirical support has not previously been assembled in an easily accessible format. This volume fills that void by compiling the historical, empirical, and practical teachings of the Process Approach. The reader will find a detailed history of the precursors to this model of thought, its development through its proponents such as Harold Goodglass, Nelson Butters, Laird Cermak, and Norman Geschwind, and its continuing legacy. The second section provides a guide to applying the Boston Process Approach to some of the field's most commonly used measures, such as the various Wechsler Intelligence Scales, the Trail Making Test, the California Verbal Learning Test, and the Boston Naming Test. Here, the reader will find a detailed history of the empirical evidence for test administration and interpretation using Boston Process Approach tenets. The final section of the book provides various perspectives on the implementation of the Boston Process Approach in various clinical and research settings and with specialized populations.




Woodcock-Johnson III


Book Description

A one-of-a-kind resource for evaluators using the Woodcock-Johnson® III The Woodcock-Johnson® III is one of the most widely used instruments for assessing both cognitive abilities and achievement in children and adolescents. Woodcock-Johnson® III: Reports, Recommendations, and Strategies is the only reference to provide valuable guidelines for preparing useful recommendations and writing effective, descriptive psychological and educational reports based on WJ III® scores, tasks analysis, and error patterns. Featuring the most up-to-date information available on the WJ III®, this essential resource offers an overview of the WJ III® scores and interpretive information, along with a review of the clusters, and tests. Numerous examples of diagnostic reports that depict a variety of common student learning problems are included, illustrating applications of the WJ III® in both educational and clinical settings. Drs. Nancy Mather and Lynne Jaffe also provide a wide variety of educational recommendations, along with summaries of proven methods and techniques for implementing successful examiner recommendations, which can easily be attached to a report. WJ III® examiners will find this volume invaluable in preparing psychoeducational reports about children's abilities, and teachers and educational therapists will find it helpful in converting recommendations into measurable goals and objectives for monitoring students' progress.




Pediatric Forensic Neuropsychology


Book Description

Pediatric Forensic Neuropsychology is the premier reference text on the practice and process of civil forensic neuropsychological assessment of children and adolescents. Written by an expert group of authors, this text is a comprehensive and authoritative guide for neuropsychologists who engage in forensic work.