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Diagnosis of a Neurological Deficit
Psychologists must first screen for signs of a neurological problem with the patient in order to diagnosis them and begin to treat them. Certain damage to the brain will cause behavioral and cognitive difficulties. Psychologists can start screening for these problems by using either one of the following techniques or all of these combined:


 * History Taking: This includes the psychologist gathering medical history of the patient and their family, presence or absence of developmental milestones, psychosocial history, and character, severity, and progress of any history of complaints. The psychologist can then gauge how to treat the patient and determine if there are any historical determinants for his/her behavior.
 * Interviewing: Psychologists use certain structured interviews in order to determine what kind of neurological problem the patient might be experiencing. There are a number of specific interview guidelines that test for certain diseases. These can include Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire, Neuropsychological Impairment Scale, Patient’s Assessment of Own Functioning, and Structured Interview for the Diagnosis of Dementia.
 * Test-Taking: The ability to take standardized tests is another tool used to diagnosis a neuropsychological disorder, especially in children. Standardized tests allow psychologists to compare a child’s results with other children’s because it has the same components and is given in the same way. It is representative of the child’s behavior and cognition.


 * Intelligence Testing: Testing one’s intelligence can also give a clue to whether there is a problem in the brain-behavior connection. The Wechsler Scales are the tests most often used to determine level of intelligence. The variety of scales available, the nature of the tasks, as well as a wide gap in verbal and performance scores can give clues to whether there is a deficit.

Other areas are also tested when a patient goes through neuropsychological assessment and these can include sensory perception, motor functions, attention, memory, auditory and visual processing, language, problem solving, planning, organization, speed of processing, and many others. Neuropsychological assessment can test many areas of the brain and functioning to determine whether there is a problem due to differences in cognition and behavior. (see Neuropsychological test)

Information Gathered From Assessment
Tsatsanis and Volkmar believe that assessment can provide unique information about the type of disorder a patient has which allows the psychologist to come up with a treatment plan. Assessment can clarify the nature of the disorder and more clearly distinguish one disorder from another. Assessment can also allow the psychologist to understand the developmental progress of the disorder in order to predict future problems and come up with a successful treatment package. Different assessments can also determine if a patient will be at risk for a particular disorder. It is important to remember, however, that assessing a patient at one time is not enough to go ahead and continue treatment because of the changes in behavior that can occur frequently. A patient must be retested multiple times in order to make sure that the current treatment is still the right treatment.

Benefits of Assessment
The most beneficial factor of neuropsychological assessment is that is provides an accurate diagnosis of the disorder for the patient when it is unclear to the psychologist what exactly he/she has. This allows for accurate treatment later on in the process. Dr. Burke’s patients usually felt like they wanted to know what was wrong with them even if the prognosis was not good. The assessment allows the psychologist and patient to understand the severity of the deficit and to allow better decision-making by both parties. It is also helpful in understanding deteriorating diseases because the patient can be assessed multiple times to see how the disorder is progressing.

One of the more unknown areas where assessments can be very beneficial is in certain forensic cases where the criminal’s competency is being put to test due to brain injury or some other traumatic event. An assessment can show this damage when neuroimaging has failed. It can also determine whether the individual is faking a disorder (malingering) in order to attain a lesser sentence.

These assessments usually don’t take too much time out of the patient’s day with most tests ranging from 6 to 12 hours or even less than that. This time, however, does not include the role of the psychologist interpreting the data, scoring the test, making formulations, and writing a formal report.

Qualifications for Conducting Assessments
These types of assessments are conducted by psychologists trained in neuropsychology who usually hold a Ph.D. They will usually have postdoctoral training in neuropsychology, neuroanatomy, and brain function. Most will be licensed and recognized by the professional board in their particular discipline.