2. Halstead-ReitanBattery The Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Battery (HRNB) is a series of test to locate and assess any structural changes in the brain that may have been acquired as a result of brain damage (Friedrich, 2003).
3. Ralph M. Reitan and Ward Halstead The HRNB was developed by Ralph M. Reitan and Ward Halstead. It was developed because the tests at the time were very concerned with intelligence testing as a way of assessing brain damage. Halstead recognized this problem and set out to experiment with various neuropsychological tests that assess brain damage (Grant & Adams, 2009).
4. Traumatic Brain Injury There were problems with finding impairments that were overlooked by the tests of the day. The Halstead-Reitan Neurological Battery was designed to find overlooked cerebral Impairments (Grant & Adams, 2009) Halstead observed people who suffered from brain damage and these people were having trouble understanding the essence of complex situations (Grant & Adams, 2009).
5. HRNB’s Multiple Tests The battery is as follows: Category test, Tactual Performance Test, Trail making test, Finger Tapping test, Rhythm test, Speech Sounds Perception tests, Reitan-Indiana Aphasia Screening test, Reitan-Klove Sensory Perceptual Examination and Ancillary tests (Friedrich, 2003
6. Examples Of Effectiveness Reitan, one of Halstead’s students, using the HRNB, diagnosed 8000 patients with the battery using only their test results with out ever meeting them face to face (Friedrich, 2003). .Many psychologists and psychiatrists have used this battery to assess people for brain damage as well as many other neurological impairments like schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, etc.
7. The Purpose of Science “The diagnostic precision of the HRB across a wide range of neuropathological states is presented as a product of rigorous scientific interplay between empirical observation and the development of a conceptual model over more than five decades” (Sweeney, et al. 2007). The HRNB has been firmly established in the neuropsychological/neuropsychiatric community for many years
8. Age & Education However, in recent years variables such as age and education exert an independent influence on the test scores (Horton, 1998). In the late 1990’s it had been suggested that the effects of age, education, IQ, and gender exerts their own influence on the HRNB (Horton, 1998). This has also prompted researchers and neuropsychologists alike to suggest that corrections to the HRNB must be considered (Horton, 1998).
9. Reitan Says? While there are significant differences on tests scores for non-brain damaged people, age/education do not effect test scores in brain damaged people (Horton, 1998). The effects of brain damage are great and to put too much importance on age and education are only going to show a minimal change, says Reitan (Horton, 1998).
10. Other variables that could affect the accuracy of the Halstead-Reitan battery How IQ and alcohol use can affect the outcomes of the HRNB, as well as, age, gender, and education. This is an important area of the HRNB debate because of the record number of increases in litigious people calling on neuropsychologists to give opinions and assessments in workman’s compensation and Medicare hearings (Satz, 1988).
11. Age and education corrections Age and education corrections on any test can present serious problems when the corrections correct for brain injury itself (Golden, Espe-Pfeifer, & Wachsler-Felder, 2000). There could be other factors that have been attributed to age but are of a more medical origin like diabetes etc. that could have nothing to do with age but none-the-less age is blamed for the low HRNB scores (Golden, et al. 2000).
12. So, what about IQ? When assessing a person’s IQ and how that might relate to the HRNB, IQ tests might not supply enough data to make a decision of whether or not brain damage is the cause (Parrish, 2005) Low IQ could be caused by any number of variables like educational disadvantage, fatigue, limited attention, emotional functioning, etc. (Parish, 2005).
13. Is gender a problem in interpreting the HRNB? The effects of gender have been documented, for example Pauker (1977) reported in his research that women perform slower of the Finger Tapping portion of the test than men (Leckliter, 1989). Pauker (1977) also reported that women did slightly better on Speech Sound Perception test than did men (Leckliter, 1989)
14. Alcohol abuse on test scores This is important to the neuropsychologist because of the pervasiveness of alcohol consumption in our society. Miller and Saucedo reviewed the finding of 37 different studies that used the HRNB and found the majority of them showed a significant difference in scores between the control groups and the alcoholics (Miller, & Saucedo, 1983).
15. Conclusion As it is now, the research has emphasized that highly trained neuropsychologists with sound clinical judgment are needed to interpret the HRNB score. However, with the findings of Leckliter and others, more attention needs to be paid to these specific demographical areas, age, IQ, gender, and alcohol abuse. (Leckliter, 1989).
16. References Friedrich, S. L. (2003). Halstead-Reitan Battery. Gale Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders. Retrieved from http://www.healthline.com/galecontent/halstead-reitan-battery/2 Golden, C. J., Espe-Pfeifer, P., & Wachsler-Felder, J. (2000). Neuropsychological Interpretation of Objective Psychological Tests. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.
17. Grant, I., & Adams, K. M. . Neuropsychological Assessment of Neuropsychiatric and Neuromedical Disorders. (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. Horton Jr., A. (1999). PREDICTION OF BRAIN DAMAGE SEVERITY: DEMOGRAPHIC CORRECTIONS. International Journal of Neuroscience, 97(3/4), 179-183. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
18. Leckliter, I. N. (1989). THE INFLUENCE OF AGE, EDUCATION, IQ, GENDER, AND ALCOHOL ABUSE ON HALSTEAD-REITAN NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL TEST BATTERY PERFORMANCE. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 45(4), 484-512. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Miller, W. R., & Saucedo, C.F. (1983). Assessment of Neuropsychological Impairment and Brain Damage in Problem Drinkers. In C. J. Golden, J. A. Moses, J. A. Coffman, W. R.
19. Pauker, J. D. (1977). Adult Norms for the Halstead-Reitan Neurological Test Battery: Preliminary Data. Paper presented at the meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Reitan, R. M. (1994). Ward Halstead's Contributions to Neuropsychology and the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological... Journal of Clinical Psychology, 50(1), 47-70. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Sweeney, J. E., Slade, H. P., Ivins, R. G., Nemeth, D. G., Ranks, D. M., & Sica, R. B. (2007). Scientific Investigation of Brain-Behavior Relationships Using the Halstead-Reitan Battery. Applied Neuropsychology, 14(2), 65-72. doi:10.1080/0908428070131976
