Neuropsychological Assessments
What is Neuropsychology?
Neuropsychology is a specialist branch of psychology that aims to understand a person’s brain function and how this impacts their thinking skills and behaviour. Clinical neuropsychology utilises comprehensive assessment to ascertain an individual’s cognitive strengths and weaknesses and identify any areas of significant impairment.
A neuropsychological evaluation may be requested for a variety of purposes including diagnostic opinion regarding intellectual disability, traumatic brain injury, neurocognitive, or neurodegenerative disorders; investigation of problems with specific cognitive skills including attention and memory; monitoring cognitive changes over time, rehabilitative and management recommendations or neuropsychological opinion relevant to a civil or criminal legal matter.
What does a Neuropsychological Assessment involve?
Neuropsychological assessment involves a comprehensive evaluation of an individual’s full range of cognitive skills including their general intellectual functioning (IQ), attention, processing speed, visual perceptual skills, verbal and visual memory and executive skills (planning, problem solving, judgement and reasoning abilities). The assessment process also includes an interview with the individual to gather information relevant to the evaluation of their presenting problem and where relevant completion of questionnaires relating to personality traits and psychological functioning. The interview and assessment process takes three to four hours on average with rest breaks provided as needed.
What Types of Neuropsychological Referrals Do We Accept?
At Mindful Neuropsychology we accept self-referrals and third party referrals (e.g., GP or other clinician, funding bodies such as TAC, NDIS and lawyers in the case of forensic and medicolegal questions).
We are experienced and equipped to provide neuropsychological evaluations of adolescents 16 years+ and adults across the lifespan. Our range of clinical expertise covers a broad variety of referral types including diagnostic, rehabilitation, baseline/cognitive wellness checks and forensic or medicolegal questions.
The following includes a list of referrals we routinely address at Mindful Neuropsychology:
Diagnostic Opinion
Neuropsychological evaluations are often requested to help assist with diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g., Intellectual Disability, ADHD or Autism Spectrum Disorder), neurodegenerative conditions (e.g., diagnosis of specific dementias), neurocognitive disorders associated with psychiatric illness, and cognitive impairment secondary to traumatic brain injury or cerebrovascular event.
Baseline and Cognitive Wellness Checks
Baseline neuropsychological assessments and cognitive wellness checks are important for identifying a person’s best level of cognitive functioning when they may be at risk of later cognitive decline (e.g., those with genetic risk factors for neurodegenerative conditions, current or past alcohol or substance use disorder, major mental illness or history of recurrent concussive injuries). Baseline assessment enables monitoring for cognitive change over time and thus early detection and treatment of emerging cognitive deficits. Baseline assessment is also useful to track recovery of cognitive function during the healing process post- traumatic brain injury or cerebrovascular insult or in the context of successful treatment of a major mental illness or substance use disorder.
Determining Eligibility for Disability Support Pension or NDIS
Neuropsychological assessments are often required to determine an individual’s eligibility to access services and supports such as Centrelink’s Disability Support Pension or NDIS funding and to determine their level of support needs.
Rehabilitation and Management Recommendations:
Neuropsychological assessment can be used to identify cognitive strengths and weaknesses, psychological and adaptive functioning and use this knowledge to provide tailored rehabilitation and management strategies from a person-centred and strengths-based perspective.
Forensic and Medicolegal Questions
Neuropsychological assessments are often requested to assist in civil and criminal proceedings. These may include neuropsychological investigations of claimants in personal injury (TAC and WorkCover) cases. They may also include neuropsychological assessment of plaintiffs or defendants in criminal proceedings (e.g. capacity to give evidence, capacity to plead, cognitive assessment of defendants for ARC eligibility or pre-sentence reports). At Mindful Neuropsychology we have experience with all types of forensic and medicolegal assessments.
Mindful Neuropsychology Are your Experts in Neuropsychology
Neuropsychology assessments are an in-demand service. This is one of our a core services that we offer. We have the experience, knowledge and commitment to provide a high quality neuropsychology service. We have made this a flexible service by accepting both self referrals and third party referrals. We strive to provide the best Neuropsychology Assessments in Australia. You can read more about our qualifications here.