DIAGNOSIS & DIFFERENTIALS
In adults, this diagnosis requires evidence of childhood onset and impairment across multiple settings, not just test-based attentional weakness.
What is ADHD?
This brain structure is critical for new learning and memory consolidation.
What is the hippocampus?
This construct involves both storage and manipulation of information and is highly dependent on dorsolateral prefrontal cortex functioning.
What is working memory?
This neurotransmitter is most commonly associated with reward, motivation, and ADHD.
What is dopamine?
The section of the report that integrates test data into a coherent clinical narrative.
What is the summary/conclusions section?
A 45-year-old adult presents with concerns about overall cognitive ability following a mild TBI and requests formal IQ testing.
What is the WAIS-5?
This condition may present with impaired attention, emotional dysregulation, and somatic complaints, but typically shows intact learning with variable retrieval under stress.
What is PTSD or Complex PTSD?
Damage to this lobe is most associated with changes in personality, inhibition, and executive functioning.
What is the frontal lobe?
This executive function is commonly assessed through set-shifting tasks and reflects integrity of frontal–subcortical circuits.
What is cognitive flexibility?
Reduced levels of this neurotransmitter are often implicated in mood disorders.
What is serotonin?
This section of a report explains why the evaluation was conducted and what referral questions are being addressed.
What is the reason for referral?
In adults, a clinician wants to assess inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and problem-solving using tasks that rely on time and rule switching.
What is the D-KEFS?
This condition is most strongly associated with early impairments in episodic memory and hippocampal atrophy.
What is Alzheimer’s disease?
This structure plays a key role in emotional salience and fear conditioning and is frequently hyperactive in anxiety and trauma-related disorders.
What is the amygdala?
This processing domain is often vulnerable in TBI, depression, and diffuse neurological conditions.
What is processing speed?
This neurotransmitter is the primary inhibitory chemical messenger in the brain.
What is GABA?
This interview domain helps contextualize current functioning by understanding early milestones.
What is developmental history?
A patient demonstrates poor free recall across trials but significantly improves with verbal cues and recognition prompts.
What is the CVLT?
This diagnostic formulation is most supported when a patient shows variable attention, intact learning curves, normal recognition memory, and cognitive performance that worsens under emotional load rather than task complexity. (Hint: rule outs).
What is anxiety- or trauma-related cognitive inefficiency rather than ADHD?
This lobe is primarily involved in auditory processing, language comprehension, and aspects of memory formation. This area is primarily in charge of receptive language skills.
What is the temporal lobe and what is Wernicke's area.
Difficulty with this skill may lead to problems interpreting tone, facial expressions, and body language.
What is social cognition/perception?
This neurotransmitter system is a primary target of cholinesterase inhibitors and is implicated in early memory decline in Alzheimer’s disease.
What is ACTH?
A key ethical principle requiring clear explanation of assessment purpose and limits.
What is informed consent?
A psychologist is concerned about thought disorder, perceptual distortion, and reality testing in a patient with limited insight.
What is the Rorschach?
A patient consistently ignores food on the left side of the plate, fails to attend to stimuli presented on the left during testing, and shows poor awareness of these errors following a stroke.
What is hemispatial (unilateral) neglect?
This white-matter structure connects the two cerebral hemispheres.
What is the corpus callosum?
This executive construct reflects the ability to suppress a dominant response in favor of a subdominant one and is often impaired in frontal lobe pathology.
What is inhibitory control?
Excessive glutamate activity is associated with this process following brain injury.
What is excitotoxicity?
“During testing, the client appeared anxious, frequently asked for reassurance, and required redirection to task; however, effort was deemed adequate and results are considered a valid estimate of current functioning.”
What is the behavioral observation section?
A clinician evaluates a 9-year-old child with suspected attentional, language, and visuospatial difficulties across multiple cognitive domains.
What is the NEPSY-II?
This condition is most likely when neuropsychological testing shows inconsistent effort, implausible symptom endorsement, and performance below chance on validity indicators.
What is Malingering?
Lesions in this area commonly result in visuospatial neglect, particularly for the left side of space.
What is the right parietal lobe?
This memory system includes skills such as riding a bike and typing.
What is procedural memory?
Many stimulant medications exert their effects by increasing availability of these two neurotransmitters.
What are dopamine and norepinephrine?
This report-writing pitfall involves over-reliance on test scores without integrating behavioral observations or contextual factors.
What is failure to integrate data (or over-quantification of results)?
A clinician assesses intellectual functioning, academic achievement, and attention/executive skills in a school-aged child.
What is the WISC, WIAT/WJ, CPT, and NEPSY?
This neurodegenerative disorder is characterized by early executive dysfunction and personality change with relatively preserved episodic memory in early stages.
What is Frontotemporal Dementia?
This subcortical structure is involved in movement regulation and is implicated in Parkinson’s disease.
What is the basal ganglia?
Visuospatial skills include... (Hint: 4 skills).
Dysregulation of this neurotransmitter system is implicated in both anxiety disorders and chronic stress-related hippocampal changes.
What is cortisol?
When providing feedback, this therapeutic approach emphasizes collaboration, strengths, and meaning-making.
What is Therapeutic Assessment?
A clinician evaluates verbal learning, visual memory, executive functioning, and processing speed in an adult referred for cognitive decline.
What is the WAIS, CVLT, WMS/RCFT, and DKEFS?