The newsletter of the Memory Disorders Project at Rutgers University

What are Neuropsychological Tests

Neuropsychological testing evaluates cognitive function, including:

  • General intelligence;
  • Attention;
  • Memory span;
  • Judgment, Motor;
  • Sensory;
  • Speech ability.

Neuropsychological Tests can also be used to assess emotional stability, quality of language production, distractibility and other qualities. These tests can document impairments that can be used to diagnose specific neurological illness or damage.

For example: A selective impairment in speech production with relative sparing of performance on other tests can suggest that brain injury is localized to one of several brain areas critical for speech production. Neuropsychological tests can also be used to diagnose dementia and certain kinds of psychological conditions

Two of the many neuropsychological tests which are used to test memory abilities are the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) and the Sternberg Memory Scan.

Further Reading:

  • Article : "ESTROGEN AND ALZHEIMER'S"
  • Article : "7 MINUTE ALZEIMER'S TEST"

by Catherine E. Myers. Copyright © 2006 Memory Loss and the Brain