DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF VALIDITY SCALES FOR THE NEUROPSYCHOLOGYBEHAVIOR AND AFFECT PROFILE - A DISSEMBLING STUDY

The Neuropsychology Behavior and Affect Profile (NBAP) is a peer-rated inventory of behavioral and affective changes in brain injured indivi duals and consists of five Clinical Scales that have demonstrated stro ng external validity. A potential confound is the NBAP's susceptibilit y to rater bias. In the present investigation, four validity scales we re developed and external validity and psychometric properties were ex amined through a dissembling paradigm. Study 1 describes item selectio n and construction of the validity scales. Study 2 demonstrates that v arious combinations of both the clinical and validity scales effective ly differentiated dissemblers from informants of two groups of traumat ic brain injury patients. Although results differed somewhat when diss emblers were grouped according to their level of neuropsychological tr aining, highly trained dissemblers (licensed clinical neuropsychologis ts) could be detected.