Table of Contents
What are neuropsychological processes?
A neuropsychological assessment provides an objective way of characterising cognitive, emotional and behavioural symptoms. This process typically involves completing a number of different cognitive tasks and questionnaires. The process is not painful but it may take a number of hours. A neuropsychological evaluation, also called neuropsychological testing, is an in-depth assessment of skills and abilities linked to brain function. The evaluation measures such areas as attention, problem solving, memory, language, I.Q., visual-spatial skills, academic skills, and social-emotional functioning. A battery approach to neuropsychological assessment is the administration of multiple measures that cover a wide range of cognitive abilities to fully characterize an individual’s neuropsychological strengths and weaknesses. Clinical Neuropsychology is a specialty field within clinical psychology, dedicated to understanding the relationships between brain and behavior, particularly as these relationships can be applied to the diagnosis of brain disorder, assessment of cognitive and behavioral functioning and the design of effective …
What is the main focus of neuropsychology?
What is neuropsychology? Neuropsychology is concerned with relationships between the brain and behavior. Neuropsychologists conduct evaluations to characterize behavioral and cognitive changes resulting from central nervous system disease or injury, like Parkinson’s disease or another movement disorder. Neuropsychological testing evaluates problems in brain functioning. Unlike CT or MRI scans, which show what the structure of the brain looks like, neuropsychological testing examines how well the brain is working when it performs certain functions (for example, learning or remembering). A neuropsychological evaluation is a test to measure how well a person’s brain is working. The abilities tested include reading, language usage, attention, learning, processing speed, reasoning, remembering, problem-solving, mood and personality and more. The field comprises of two main types of neuropsychology: cognitive and clinical. Cognitive neuropsychologists conduct research that helps further the field. Clinical professionals in the area use the conclusions of their cognitive colleagues to help patients. The study of the brain can also be called neurology, neurophysiology, neuropsychology or cognitive science, depending on on how what you are studying about the brain. Someone with a medical degree who works in the field is called a neuropsychiatrist. Clinical neuropsychologists work with people with brain disease or injury, usually in a medical facility.