Evaluating the appropriateness of neuropsychological measures among young adults

Background

Many tasks used in neuropsychological assessments which assess language function were developed decades ago. It remains to be seen whether utilising these tasks in young adults is appropriate. This project seeks to ask whether these tests are reliable and meaningful in a younger population who may be unfamiliar with the concepts developed at the time. This project will involve collecting neuropsychological data from healthy young adults and developing new normative data for language measures such as the Sydney Language Battery and the Boston Naming Test. This will not only inform the utility of these measures among young adults who present with cognitive complaints but will also examine practice effects and inform the way these tasks are applied and interpreted in clinical practice.

Research Questions / Hypotheses

This research is interested in understanding whether the normative data that is currently being used in neuropsychological assessments is appropriate for young adults.

Participants

100 REP participants were recruited. Participants were excluded from analysis if they were deemed to not speak ‘Australian English’ as per the inclusion criteria or were older than 35 years old (n = 27). Sessions were discontinued for participants for whom English was insufficient (n = 8) and they were provided with debriefing as per standard administration protocol.

Methods

A broad neuropsychological battery was administered to each participant including measures of processing speed, attention, working memory, memory, language, and visuoconstructional functioning. For each participant, data was collected in one 60–90-minute session, with a break offered to participants halfway through.

Results

Analysis for the current study relate predominantly to that of an honours project producing normative data for the Boston Naming Test (BNT) in this novel population. Mean BNT performance was significantly poorer than North American samples (p < .001) and comparable to that of older Australians (p = .82) and young adult New Zealanders (p = .65). At an item level, the current sample was uniquely unfamiliar with items ‘yoke’, ‘trellis’, and ‘latch’ and more familiar with items ‘pretzel’ and ‘beaver’ than culturally similar samples.

Implications

To improve BNT administration among Australian young adults, it is proposed that items could be presented in order of familiarity and administration started at item 20. The current investigation evaluates the BNT for a previously unexamined population, highlighting the importance of representative BNT normative data and proposes alternative clinical applications to Australian young adults. This study also identifies the need to update normative data for language tests such that they reflect word familiarity in an ever-changing linguistic landscape.