WHY WE CREATED THE SPANISH NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL EXAMINATIONS

The project to create a book of cognitive test norms specifically for Spanish-speaking populations had two purposes: The first one was to address the fact in the United States neuropsychology professionals are frequently called to evaluate monolingual Spanish-speaking immigrants or individuals whose knowledge of English is not sufficient to warrant an examination in this language. The second, probably more obvious purpose, was to provide Spanish speaking colleagues in Spanish-speaking countries some appropriately normed tools of neuropsychological assessment. Indeed, when this project was started in the 1990’s there were few Spanish language instruments both the United States and in Spanish speaking countries. Use of translated English language instruments and norms collected with English speakers with Spanish speaking patients was rampant -a practice lacking scientific plausibility and of questionable ethical grounding.

The project consisted of selecting tests with a good track record in the field of clinical neuropsychology, adapting them to respond to language and cultural demands, and collecting data from individuals free of neurological or psychiatric illness in the border area of the United States and Mexico on the one hand and Madrid, Spain on the other.

The project also wanted to address a population that is seldom looked at by neuropsychologists: individuals with extreme low levels of education. Indeed, while neuropsychological testing has developed chiefly in English-speaking areas and with individuals with relatively high levels of formal education (10 or more years of schooling), a large number of countries in the world have populations with an average of six or fewer years of formal schooling. Investigation on the effects of this lack of formal education on cognition has been largely ignored by the scientific community. There are, of course, exceptions. These will be considered here in future additions to this blog.