Psychological Assessments of Brain Damage and Intellectual Impairment in Psychiatric Patients

Abstract

This study reports the apparent capacity of certain test performances to detect brain damage. Two measures (derived from the Modified Word Learning Test and from design recall) were used which have been claimed to be specific indicators of brain damage. A measure of intellectual impairment of a more general kind was derived from verbal/non‐verbal intellectual performance discrepancies. A group of brain damaged subjects, three groups of neurotics, three groups of psychotics and an epileptic group were studied. The results indicate the differentiation of brain damaged subjects from others is possible. Various score combinations are discussed to this end. Other points of interest concern the performances of chronic schizophrenics, and positional learning effects in different clinical groups.