To compare the predictive validity of learning and retention measures from the picture version of the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test with Immediate Recall (pFCSRT + IR) for identifying incident mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

Learning was defined by the sum of free recall (FR) and retention by delayed free recall (DFR) tested 15–20 min later. Totally, 1422 Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA) participants (mean age 69.6 years, 54% male, mean 16.7 years of education) without dementia or MCI received the pFCSRT + IR at baseline and were followed longitudinally. Cox proportional hazards models were used to evaluate the effect of baseline learning and retention on risk of MCI.

In total, 187 participants developed MCI over a median of 8.1 years of follow-up. FR and DFR each predicted incident MCI adjusting for age, sex, and education. Also, each independently predicted incident MCI in the presence of the other with similar effect sizes: around 20% decrease in the hazard of MCI corresponding to one standard deviation increase in FR or DFR.

The practice of preferring retention over learning to predict incident MCI should be reconsidered. The decision to include retention should be guided by time constraints and patient burden.

This study describes the performance of the Multilingual Naming Test (MINT) by Chinese American older adults who are monolingual Chinese speakers. An attempt was also made to identify items that could introduce bias and warrant attention in future investigation.

The MINT was administered to 67 monolingual Chinese older adults as part of the standard dementia evaluation at the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS), New York, USA. A diagnosis of normal cognition (n = 38), mild cognitive impairment (n = 12), and dementia (n = 17) was assigned to all participants at clinical consensus conferences using criterion sheets developed at the ADRC at ISMMS.

MINT scores were negatively correlated with age and positively correlated with education, showing sensitivity to demographic factors. One item, butterfly, showed no variations in responses across diagnostic groups. Inclusion of responses from different regions of China changed the answers from “incorrect” to “correct” on 20 items. The last five items, porthole, anvil, mortar, pestle, and axle, yielded a high nonresponse rate, with more than 70% of participants responding with “I don’t know.” Four items, funnel, witch, seesaw, and wig, were not ordered with respect to item difficulty in the Chinese language. Two items, gauge and witch, were identified as culturally biased for the monolingual group.

Our study highlights the cultural and linguistic differences that might influence the test performance. Future studies are needed to revise the MINT using more universally recognized items of similar word frequency across different cultural and linguistic groups.

The aim of this systematic review was to identify the presence and nature of relationships between specific forms of aprosodia (i.e., expressive and receptive emotional and linguistic prosodic deficits) and other cognitive-communication deficits and disorders in individuals with right hemisphere damage (RHD) due to stroke.

One hundred and ninety articles from 1970 to February 2020 investigating receptive and expressive prosody in patients with relatively focal right hemisphere brain damage were identified via database searches.

Fourteen articles were identified that met inclusion criteria, passed quality reviews, and included sufficient information about prosody and potential co-occurring deficits. Twelve articles investigated receptive emotional aprosodia, and two articles investigated receptive linguistic aprosodia. Across the included studies, receptive emotional prosody was not systematically associated with hemispatial neglect, but did co-occur with deficits in emotional facial recognition, interpersonal interactions, or emotional semantics. Receptive linguistic processing was reported to co-occur with amusia and hemispatial neglect. No studies were found that investigated the co-occurrence of expressive emotional or linguistic prosodic deficits with other cognitive-communication impairments.

This systematic review revealed significant gaps in the research literature regarding the co-occurrence of common right hemisphere disorders with prosodic deficits. More rigorous empirical inquiry is required to identify specific patient profiles based on clusters of deficits associated with right hemisphere stroke. Future research may determine whether the co-occurrences identified are due to shared cognitive-linguistic processes, and may inform the development of evidence-based assessment and treatment recommendations for individuals with cognitive-communication deficits subsequent to RHD.

We investigated the impact of culturally relevant social, educational, and language factors on cognitive test performance among Spanish speakers living near the US–Mexico border.

Participants included 254 healthy native Spanish speakers from the Neuropsychological Norms for the US–Mexico Border Region in Spanish (NP-NUMBRS) project (Age: M = 37.3, SD = 10.4; Education: M = 10.7, SD = 4.3; 59% Female). A comprehensive neuropsychological battery was administered in Spanish. Individual test scaled scores and T-scores (based on region-specific norms adjusted for age, education, and sex) were averaged to create Global Mean Scaled and T-scores. Measures of culturally relevant factors included a self-reported indicator of educational quality/access (proportion of education in Spanish-speaking country, quality of school/classroom setting, stopped attending school to work), childhood socioeconomic environment (parental education, proportion of time living in Spanish-speaking country, childhood socioeconomic and health status, access to basic resources, work as a child), and Spanish/English language use and fluency.

Several culturally relevant variables were significantly associated with unadjusted Global Scaled Scores in univariable analyses. When using demographically adjusted T-scores, fewer culturally relevant characteristics were significant. In multivariable analyses, being bilingual (p = .04) and working as a child for one’s own benefit compared to not working as a child (p = .006) were significantly associated with higher Global Mean T-score, accounting for 9% of variance.

Demographically adjusted normative data provide a useful tool for the identification of brain dysfunction, as these account for much of the variance of sociocultural factors on cognitive test performance. Yet, certain culturally relevant variables still contributed to cognitive test performance above and beyond basic demographics, warranting further investigation.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is often associated with cognitive deficits. Accurate evaluation of the MS patients’ cognitive performance is essential for diagnosis and treatment recommendation. The Brief International Cognitive Assessment in Multiple Sclerosis (BICAMS), widely used cognitive testing battery, examines processing speed, verbal and visuospatial learning, and memory. Our study aims to examine the psychometric properties of an Arabic version of the BICAMS and to provide normative values in a Lebanese sample.

The BICAMS, comprised of the Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT), Brief Visuospatial Memory Test-Revised (BVMT-R), and a newly developed verbal learning/memory test, the Verbal Memory Arabic Test (VMAT), were administered on healthy subjects and MS patients. The sample consisted of 180 healthy individuals, of whom 63 were retested after 2–3 weeks. Forty-three MS patients matched with 43 healthy subjects based on age, sex, and years of education were assessed. A sample of 10 MS patients was also examined on two occasions. Test–retest reliability and criterion-related validity were examined, and regression-based norms were derived.

The test–retest correlations showed good evidence of reliability with coefficients ranging between 0.64 and 0.73 in the healthy sample, and between 0.43 and 0.92 in the MS sample. The BICAMS was able to discriminate between MS patients and matched healthy participants on the SDMT and BVMT-R. Normative data were comparable to other studies.

This new Arabic version of the BICAMS shows initial good psychometric properties. While good evidence of VMAT’s reliability was shown in the healthy participants, less test–retest reliability in this tool was seen in the MS group, and partial criterion-related validity was evident. This renders further examination of the VMAT. We provide regression-based norms for a Lebanese sample and encourage the use of this battery in both research and clinical settings.

To examine the effects of pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI) on verbal IQ by severity and over time.

A systematic review and subsequent meta-analysis of verbal IQ by TBI severity were conducted using a random effects model. Subgroup analysis included two epochs of time (e.g., <12 months postinjury and ≥12 months postinjury).

Nineteen articles met inclusion criteria after an extensive literature search in MEDLINE, PsycInfo, Embase, and CINAHL. Meta-analysis revealed negative effects of injury across severities for verbal IQ and at both time epochs except for mild TBI < 12 months postinjury. Statistical heterogeneity (i.e., between-study variability) stemmed from studies with inconsistent classification of mild TBI, small sample sizes, and in studies of mixed TBI severities, although not significant. Risk of bias on estimated effects was generally low (k = 15) except for studies with confounding bias (e.g., lack of group matching by socio-demographics; k = 2) and measurement bias (e.g., outdated measure at time of original study, translated measure; k = 2).

Children with TBI demonstrate long-term impairment in verbal IQ, regardless of severity. Future studies are encouraged to include scores from subtests within verbal IQ (e.g., vocabulary, similarities, comprehension) in addition to functional language measures (e.g., narrative discourse, reading comprehension, verbal reasoning) to elucidate higher-level language difficulties experienced in this population.

To validate an informant-based tool – the extended version of the Cognitive Scale of Basic and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (BADL and IADL) or Ext. Cog-ADL Scale – in a larger sample and with a broader range of cognitive-functional items related to activities of daily living (ADL).

The Ext. Cog-ADL Scale was administered to family informants of 42 patients with dementia, 43 patients with multidomain mild cognitive impairment (mdMCI), and 23 healthy control participants. We analyzed the convergent and concurrent validity and external validity of this scale.

The Ext. Cog-ADL Scale demonstrated good psychometric properties. Episodic and working memory tests were the main predictors of most cognitive-functional items of the scale. While patients with dementia obtained lower scores in most error categories of the scale, affecting both BADL and IADL, mdMCI patients showed a more specific pattern of difficulties. Apart from the typical alterations in IADL, mdMCI patients also showed difficulties in several error categories related to BADL (i.e., error detection, problem solving, task self-initiation, distraction inhibition, and restore).

The Ext. Cog-ADL Scale seems to be an adequate tool to capture the specific pattern of cognitive alterations related to IADL and BADL that differentiates dementia from mdMCI and healthy aging; it shows that mdMCI can involve specific cognitive difficulties that affect even BADL.

Apathy, the reduction of motivation and goal-directed behaviour, is a ubiquitous behavioural syndrome in many neurological disorders. However, apathy measures are limited in non-English speaking countries. The present study aimed to develop a culturally appropriate version of the Vietnamese Frontal Systems Behavioural Scale-Apathy subscale (V-FrSBe-A) and Dimensional Apathy Scale (V-DAS), examine their internal reliability and construct validity (i.e., factor structure, convergent and divergent validity) in a Vietnamese healthy sample and establish preliminary normative cut-offs for clinical and research applications.

In total, 112 healthy subjects and 64 informants completed the self-report and informant report V-FrSBe-A and V-DAS, developed using a translation, back-translation and cultural adaptation procedure. McDonald’s omega was applied to examine internal reliability. The internal structure of the V-DAS was evaluated using exploratory structural equation model. For both apathy scales, convergent validity was determined by correlations between scales and between informant and self-report versions. Regarding divergent validity, participants completed the Vietnamese Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 and V-FrSBe-Disinhibition for depression and disinhibition assessment.

Both the V-FrSBe-A and V-DAS were reliable (ωt ≥ .74). Dimensional manifestations of apathy in executive, emotional and initiation domains were confirmed on the V-DAS. Both scales were also valid, convergent with each other and divergent from depression and disinhibition symptoms. Cut-off scores for both scales were higher than their English versions.

The adapted V-FrSBe-A and V-DAS have good reliability and validity for the potential application in clinical groups to advance current knowledge about apathy transculturally and direct more effective clinical care for Vietnamese individuals with neurological disorders.

Performing high-quality and reliable cognitive testing requires significant resources and training. As a result, large-scale studies involving cognitive testing are difficult to perform in low- and middle-income settings, limiting access to critical knowledge to improve academic achievement and economic production in these populations. The NIH Toolbox® is a collection of cognitive, motor, sensory, and emotional tests that can be administered and scored using an iPad® tablet, reducing the need for training and quality monitoring; and thus, it is a potential solution to this problem.

We describe our process for translation and cultural adaptation of the existing NIH Toolbox tests of fluid cognition into the Swahili and Dholuo languages for use in children aged 3–14 years in western Kenya. Through serial forward and back translations, cognitive interviews, group consensus, outside feedback, and support from the NIH Toolbox team, we produced translated tests that have both face validity and linguistic validation.

During our cognitive interviews, we found that the five chosen tests (one each of attention, cognitive flexibility, working memory, episodic memory, and processing speed) were generally well understood by children aged 7–14 years in our chosen populations. The cognitive interviews informed alterations in translation as well as slight changes in some images to culturally adapt the tests.

This study describes the process by which we translated five fluid cognition tests from the NIH Toolbox into the Swahili and Dholuo languages. The finished testing application will be available for future studies, including a pilot study for assessment of psychometric properties.

Normative data are essential for neuropsychological evaluations, but they are scarce for Mandarin-speaking populations, despite Mandarin being the language with the most native speakers. Several normative data studies have been reported in recent years for Mandarin speakers, who reside in different countries/regions (e.g., mainland China, Taiwan, and Singapore, etc.). This review aims to serve as a reference guide to appropriate norms when working with a Mandarin-speaking patient and to guide future endeavors in test validation and development in areas where studies to date fall short.

We conducted a systematic review utilizing the PsycInfo, PubMed, and China Knowledge Resource Integrated databases as well as additional literature search through citations. We performed evaluations of the existing norms based on their test selection, cognitive domains covered, sample size, language, regions of participant recruitment, stratification by age/gender/education levels, and reporting of other psychometric properties. We focused on articles that included performance-based tests for adults but excluded those with purely clinical norms or from commercial publishers.

We reviewed 1155 articles found through literature search and identified 43 articles reporting normative data for this population that met our inclusion criteria. Sixty-five distinctive tests and 127 versions were covered. The results are presented within two detailed tables organized by articles and tests, respectively.

We discussed the strengths and limitations of these normative reports. Practitioners are recommended to utilize normative data that most closely approximate a test-taker’s cultural and demographic backgrounds. Limitations of the current review are also discussed.

Clinical neuropsychology has been slow in adopting novelties in psychometrics, statistics, and technology. Researchers have indicated that the stationary nature of clinical neuropsychology endangers its evidence-based character. In addition to a technological crisis, there may be a statistical crisis affecting clinical neuropsychology. That is, the frequentist null hypothesis significance testing framework remains the dominant approach in clinical practice, despite a recent surge in critique on this framework. While the Bayesian framework has been put forward as a viable alternative in psychology in general, the possibilities it offers to clinical neuropsychology have not received much attention.

In the current position paper, we discuss and reflect on the value of Bayesian methods for the advancement of evidence-based clinical neuropsychology.

We aim to familiarize clinical neuropsychologists and neuropsychological researchers to Bayesian methods of inference and provide a clear rationale for why these methods are valuable for clinical neuropsychology.

We argue that Bayesian methods allow for a more intuitive answer to our diagnostic questions and form a more solid foundation for sequential and adaptive diagnostic testing, representing uncertainty about patients’ observed test scores and cognitive modeling of test results.

Late-onset amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) with long disease course and slow progression has been recently recognized as a possible phenotypical expression of a limbic-predominant neurodegenerative disorder. Basic emotion recognition ability crucially depending on temporo-limbic integrity is supposed to be impaired in this group of MCI subjects presenting a selective vulnerability of medio-temporal and limbic regions. However, no study specifically investigated this issue.

Hereby, we enrolled 30 aMCI with a biomarker-based diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (i.e., aMCI-AD, n = 16) or a biomarker evidence of selective medio-temporal and limbic degeneration (aMCI-mTLD, n = 14). Ekman-60 Faces Test (Ek-60F) was administered to each subject, comparing the performance with that of 20 healthy controls (HCs).

aMCI-mTLD subjects showed significantly lower Ek-60F global scores compared to HC (p = 0.001), whose performance was comparable to aMCI-AD. Fear (p = 0.02), surprise (p = 0.005), and anger (p = 0.01) recognition deficits characterized the aMCI-mTLD performance. Fear recognition scores were significantly lower in aMCI-mTLD compared to aMCI-AD (p = 0.04), while no differences were found in other emotions.

Impaired social cognition, suggested by defective performance in emotion recognition tasks, may be a useful cognitive marker to detect limbic-predominant aMCI subjects among the heterogeneous aMCI population.

Neuropsychological assessment via video conferencing has been proposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Existing literature has demonstrated feasibility and acceptance of neuropsychological measures administered by videoconference, although few studies have examined feasibility and patient acceptance of TNP visits directly to patients’ homes (DTH-TNP).

We modified a previously published patient satisfaction survey for DTH-TNP and developed a clinician feasibility survey to examine experiences during DTH-TNP.

Seventy-two patients (age range: preschool-geriatric) evaluated by DTH-TNP for cognitive problems at an academic medical center responded to voluntary surveys between April 20, 2020, and August 19, 2020, and 100% indicated satisfaction. Fifty-nine percent of patients reported limitations (e.g., technological concern) during the appointment. 134 clinician surveys were collected and indicated that clinicians achieved the goal of their appointment in 90% of encounters.

These qualitative data suggest that patients and clinicians found DTH-TNP to be satisfactory during the COVID-19 pandemic, while also recognizing limitations of the practice. These results are limited in that voluntary surveys are subject to bias. They support the growing body of literature suggesting that DTH-TNP provides a valuable service, though additional research to establish reliability and validity is needed.

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared an outbreak of a new viral entity, coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), to be a worldwide pandemic. The characteristics of this virus, as well as its short- and long-term implications, are not yet well understood. The objective of the current paper was to provide a critical review of the emerging literature on COVID-19 and its implications for neurological, neuropsychiatric, and cognitive functioning.

A critical review of recently published empirical research, case studies, and reviews pertaining to central nervous system (CNS) complications of COVID-19 was conducted by searching PubMed, PubMed Central, Google Scholar, and bioRxiv.

After considering the available literature, areas thought to be most pertinent to clinical and research neuropsychologists, including CNS manifestations, neurologic symptoms/syndromes, neuroimaging, and potential long-term implications of COVID-19 infection, were reviewed.

Once thought to be merely a respiratory virus, the scientific and medical communities have realized COVID-19 to have broader effects on renal, vascular, and neurological body systems. The question of cognitive deficits is not yet well studied, but neuropsychologists will undoubtedly play an important role in the years to come.

To propose a set of internationally harmonized procedures and methods for assessing neurocognitive functions, smell, taste, mental, and psychosocial health, and other factors in adults formally diagnosed with COVID-19 (confirmed as SARS-CoV-2 + WHO definition).

We formed an international and cross-disciplinary NeuroCOVID Neuropsychology Taskforce in April 2020. Seven criteria were used to guide the selection of the recommendations’ methods and procedures: (i) Relevance to all COVID-19 illness stages and longitudinal study design; (ii) Standard, cross-culturally valid or widely available instruments; (iii) Coverage of both direct and indirect causes of COVID-19-associated neurological and psychiatric symptoms; (iv) Control of factors specifically pertinent to COVID-19 that may affect neuropsychological performance; (v) Flexibility of administration (telehealth, computerized, remote/online, face to face); (vi) Harmonization for facilitating international research; (vii) Ease of translation to clinical practice.

The three proposed levels of harmonization include a screening strategy with telehealth option, a medium-size computerized assessment with an online/remote option, and a comprehensive evaluation with flexible administration. The context in which each harmonization level might be used is described. Issues of assessment timelines, guidance for home/remote assessment to support data fidelity and telehealth considerations, cross-cultural adequacy, norms, and impairment definitions are also described.

The proposed recommendations provide rationale and methodological guidance for neuropsychological research studies and clinical assessment in adults with COVID-19. We expect that the use of the recommendations will facilitate data harmonization and global research. Research implementing the recommendations will be crucial to determine their acceptability, usability, and validity.