Neuropsychological Evaluation of the Child, 2nd Edition

Review:

Neuropsychological assessments of children are significantly more challenging than neuropsychological assessments of adults because while most adult brains are mature, the brain of the child is still in the process of developing. This book helps to equip the neuropsychologist with knowledge and many of the tools required for the neuropsychological assessment of children.

The tools made available to the reader in this book include descriptions of neuropsychological tests that are available for children as well as various techniques that can be used. In addition, and particularly useful in this book, are normative data for many of the child neuropsychological tests. Being one of the most recent books to be published in the field of paediatric neuropsychology, this book provides the reader with knowledge from recent research findings, something that is sorely missed in other popular books that have now become outdated.

As is usually the case with books published in the US and other developed countries, the normative data contained in this book are not applicable to most South African children because most South African children do not have English as a first language and/or have disadvantaged quality of education, unlike the US children on which most of the normative data in this book are based. However, where South African children are English first language speaking and are attending schools that provide good quality of education (e.g. private schools of Quintile 4 or 5 schools), the normative data contained in this book will probably be suitable.

While the normative data are not always suitable for South African children, most of the other information, such as at what age handedness can be expected to be established, or what areas of the brain are activated with verbal fluency tasks, are relevant and very useful.

Domains covered in this book include intelligence, executive function, attention and processing speed, language, motor and sensory-perceptual function, visuoperceptual, visuospatial and visuoconstructional function, learning and memory, and validity indicators to assess noncredible effort.

This book is highly recommended for any psychologists who do assessments with children, whether neuropsychological assessments, scholastic assessments or clinical assessments.

Review by Sharon Truter, 11 May 2021