Analyzing change in repeated neuropsychological assessment

Abstract

The present study focused on analyzing effects of repeated assessment on performance of several neuropsychological tests. The participants of the study were two groups of children (11.6 and 7.7 years old in the beginning of the research). The neuropsychological tests were repeated nine times with the test-retest interval of two months. The study analyzed in detail the reliability and stability of various scores of the Tower of Hanoi Test in repeated assessment, and suggested revisions in the scoring system of the test. The study also provided growth curves for the Developmental Test of Visuo-Motor Integration, the Underlining Test, the Porteus Mazes Test and the Tower of Hanoi Test. Special interest was focused on the effect of age, cognitive level, and alternative versions on the magnitude of practice effects. Additionally, the study provided an example of an intervention research evaluating change in performance with pre-post assessments, behavior questionnaires, and time-series analysis. The results of the time-series analysis were compared with the growth curve of the control group. The results showed that the visuo-motor task was not sensitive to practice effects, but the visual discrimination and executive function tests were. The alternative versions did not eliminate practice effects. The older participants showed larger practice effects than the younger ones. These findings suggest that reliable conclusions in time-series analysis require minimizing practice effects or separating practice effects from development and intervention effects. If minimizing practice effects is not possible, growth curves help assessing the magnitude of practice effects and separating it from intervention effects.