Neuropsychological Test Batteries in Neuropsychological Assessment

Neuropsychological assessment has become increasingly dependent upon the use of test batteries. The use of such batteries has evolved with the influence of several historical perspectives. A prominent factor has been the unequivocal elucidation in the past 30–40 yr of the complexity and diversity of brain function, and the recognition of the nature and scope of hemispheric specialization of function. Conceptualizations of brain-behavior relationships predicated on unitary models of brain dysfunction were prevalent as recently as the 1940s. For example, Kurt Goldstein’s (1939) theories assumed that all brain dysfunction (regardless of location, etiology, phase of illness, or the like) resulted in a central deficit in the ability to assume the abstract attitude. Such unitary models of the effects of disordered brain function on behavior represented the theoretical basis for notions of “organicity.” To some extent, these unitary models of brain dysfunction represented the historical extension of the ideas of Flourens (1824) and Lashley (1929), who argued that the effect of cerebral lesions on behavior was related to the amount of brain tissue that was damaged or destroyed.