THE IMPORTANCE OF DEMOGRAPHIC ADJUSTMENTS ON NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL TEST-PERFORMANCE - A RESPONSE TO REITAN AND WOLFSON (1995)

Recently, Reitan and Wolfson (1995) questioned the validity of using a ge and education adjustments in the clinical practice of neuropsycholo gy based on a study of the effects of age and education on the General Neuropsychological Deficit Scale (GNDS) score. We critique their find ings and conclusions on both theoretical and methodological grounds. W e then present the results of a similar investigation on the effects o f age and education on three different neuropsychological summary scor es. In contrast to Reitan and Wolfson's findings, in the present study age and education had similar effects on neuropsychological summary s cores (GNDS, HII, and AIR) whether or not subjects were brain-damaged. Younger or more educated subjects consistently performed batter than did older or less educated subjects. This was true even though correla tions between age and education with neuropsychological summary scores were low and often statistically nonsignificant in both brain-damaged and pseudoneurologic samples. In addition, the present study demonstr ated that the use of demographically adjusted neuropsychological summa ry scores results in consistently higher diagnostic classification acc uracy than the use of nonadjusted scores.