second day of neuropsych eval
 

Well, I made it through the first day of my neuropsych evaluation. It was fun and challenging to say the least. It seemed like things were either really easy for me or a complete no go. One extreme or the other.

Also, some things are things I've done as a teacher for over 35 years like name a string of words that begin with the letter "s". What continent is the Sahara Desert on - a lot of history questions which were easy for me. Name a set of pictures - I named them all.

He decided to break it up into two sessions so I go back this morning.

I was a bit hyped up and having a better than average brain day. I just wanted a typical day - hopefully today will be more "normal" :)

He seemed really nice so we'll see how the report comes out. If it comes out not really reflective of how I am on a day to day basis can I do it over? Probably for validity a doctor would have to use a completely different battery of tests. Ever wonder why it's called a battery of tests ;)

I had quite a few myself do to a few court cases!.....Very hard especially when they find the weak parts and start to focus to get a good complete report!
I dont envy you at all, best of luck and take many breaks!

When you get the report back, you will understand why it is called a battery of tests. There are many different tests researched and validated to indicate specific functions.

The WAIS-II Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-II measures processing speed and the difference intelligences, verbal, math, reasoning, etc.
The Wechsler Adult Memory Scales tests for auditory, visual and working memory.
The Trail Making Test,
The Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT) was developed by Dorothy Gronwall, a New Zealand neuro psych who cared for a past NT participant. It was a gold standard test. Dr Gronwall did a lot of ground breaking research. Sad that a great brain researcher died from an aneurysm in 2001.
The MMPI-II

There are many other tests within the battery that are published and sold to testers.

For many years, the Halstead Reitan Battery was the standard battery used for brain injuries. Now, newer tests and batteries use computers to make the testing and scoring easier.

Nov., 2005 I had my first neuro psyche exam at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. Second test was exactly 6 months after the surgery to remove a oligodendroglioma tumor, third was right before my second surgery.
At Barnes my neuro psyche exams were all 5 hours long - very intense but given by gentle, caring people.
I'm glad they happened in one day.

BlueSkye1962, adding a bit to what Mark wrote:

"The WAIS-II Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-II measures processing speed and the difference intelligences, verbal, math, reasoning, etc."

It is very common for people to perform at different levels in the different parts of WAIS. For example, one of my nephews, who has no neurological issues, is in the gifted range for verbal intelligence and is in the high-normal range for number skills.

If something similar applies to you please don't panic about it; it may well have nothing whatsoever to do with your TBI/PCS.

I have always struggled with the Verbal Intelligence part of the WAIS. My word finding and other problems have kept my verbal at about the 88th percentile where my other scores are at the top. My processing speed is at the bottom 10 %. The 1st NP doc tried to say I could not have such a divergent result. But then, he did not understand why I was so distracted by the leaf blower noise from outside.

Our son is dyslexic as well as extremely gifted and went through testing when he was 8 so I know to look at each subtest - He had many extremely high scores as well as a few extremely low scores.

I was also in education for over 35 years and I have a PHD in education so I know a lot (or at least some) about testing. I'd just never been on the receiving end of it and found it challenging and stimulating. I enjoy mind puzzles and that sort of thing (most of the time - more so in the past than now - but there are still glimpses of my former self that peek out now and then).

None of my testing was computerized.