Neuropsychological Assessment with Hispanic Clients

Abstract

(from the chapter) The comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation allows to make predictions about prognosis as well as make recommendations for possible intervention and rehabilitation. Because one has long since abandoned the eugenic notion of inherent intellectual and cognitive differences among cultures, ethnicity, and races, assumed when conducting neuropsychological assessment with the Hispanic client an absence of any underlying cognitive or intellectual differences specific to ethnicity. This assumption can also be seen in research that investigates the invariable components of cognitive functioning, e.g., those processes that seem to be measurably consistent across race, ethnicity, and culture, rather than looking for discrepancies. Further, this research supports a greater level of homogeny and ubiquity for basic neuropsychological traits. Thus, it seems that the quality of the test in regard to its appropriateness toward Hispanic clients relies on the quality of its translation and its ability to generalize to multiple Hispanic microcultures. Rather than taking a restrictive approach and portending that clinicians should invariably refer out when working with Hispanic clients whom they are not specifically trained to work with, this chapter aims to encourage competent clinicians to use the assessments that ate available and provide resources for normative studies that focus on the more quantifiable variables that span race and ethnicity in an effort to improve readers' competency and knowledge as well as provide services to the Hispanic community. Thus, the normative data available for variables such as education, language ability and to a limited extent, acculturation, age, wealth/poverty, and gender becomes paramount. In a recent review of neuropsychological assessment across race and ethnicity, Gasquoine points out the problematic process of investigation that currently exists, e.g., nonoperational definitions of race and ethnicity or impossibly large groupings of ethnicity and race) that he suggests may result in false negatives or race-based substandard/extraordinary services. Therefore, rather than identify the problems one could or might encounter, or perhaps the data that we are lacking, it is the goal of this chapter to provide resources that allow one to find assessments with normative data that span the broader Hispanic culture in a manner that does not present significant differences among the various Hispanic populations. Depending on the domain being assessed, there are specific assessments designed and normed for Hispanic populations but the majority have been translations of existing measures with normative data representative of various Hispanic cultures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved)