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For a period of some fifteen years following completion of my internship training in clinical psychology (1950-1951) at the Washington University School of Medicine and my concurrent successful navigation through that school's neuroanatomy course, clinical work in neuropsychology for me and the psychologists of my generation consisted almost exclusively of trying to help our physician colleagues differentiate patients with neurologic from those with psychiatric disorders. In time, experience led all of us from the several disciplines involved in this enterprise to the conclusion that the crude diag nostic techniques available to us circa 1945-1965 had garnered us little valid information upon which to base such complex, differential diagnostic decisions. It now is gratifying to look back and review the remarkable progress that has occurred in the field of clinical neuropsychology in the four decades since I was a graduate student. In the late 1940s such pioneers as Ward Halstead, Alexander Luria, George Yacorzynski, Hans-Lukas Teuber, and Arthur Benton already were involved in clinical studies that, by the late 1960s, would markedly have improved the quality of clinical practice. However, the only psychological tests that the clinical psychologist of my immediate post-Second World War generation had as aids for the diagnosis of neurologically based conditions involving cognitive deficit were such old standbys as the Wechsler Bellevue, Rorschach, Draw A Person, Bender Gestalt, and Graham Kendall Memory for Designs Test.
List of contents
I. Relevance of Clinical Neuropsychology to Everyday Function: Transitions from a Diagnostic to an Ecological Science.- 1. Introduction to the Neuropsychology of Everyday Life.- 2. A Review of the Ecological Validity of Neuropsychological Tests.- 3. Integrating Neuropsychological and "Real-Life" Data: A Neuropsychological Model for Assessing Everyday Functioning.- 4. Use of Demographic Information in Neuropsychological Assessment.- 5. A Functional Assessment System for Real-World Rehabilitation Outcomes.- 6. Assessment of Functional Communication.- 7. Clinical Memory Assessment: Matching the Method to the Aim.- 8. Quality-of-Life Assessment in Neuropsychology.- 9. Assessment of Cognitive Competency.- II. Neuropsychological Analyses of Cognitive and Practical Competencies.- 10. Impact of Memory Disorder on Everyday Life: Awareness of Deficits and Return to Work.- 11. Buttering a Hot Cup of Coffee: An Approach to the Study of Errors of Action in Patients with Brain Damage.- 12. A Behavioral Approach to Activities of Daily Living.- 13. Neuropsychological Aspects of Motor Vehicle Operation.
