Despite many disagreements on the utility of neuropsychological applications in schools, executive function measures have been found to be useful across a variety of areas and ages. In addition, many disagreements are extant in discussions of the maturational course of the development of executive functioning abilities that are dependent on functional capacity of the human brain, including the frontal lobes, among other brain areas. In part, these controversies are related to a dearth of standardized functional assessments of executive functioning abilities across wide age spans. This article describes several recent measures of executive functioning and uses life-span data from these assessments to project maturational periods of specific executive functions. Clinical implications of these results for school psychology assessment, rehabilitation of brain-injured school-aged children, and forensic practice of school psychology are posited. C 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.During the last half century, interest in the applications of human brain-behavior relationships has increased at a tremendous rate. There are many examples of the validity of neuropsychological research findings as well as successful applications of neuropsychological assessment intervention methods with children (Hartlage, 1975(Hartlage, , 1986Horton, 1994;Horton & Puente, 1986;Hynd & Willis, 1988;Reitan & Davison, 1974;Reynolds & Fletcher-Janzen, 1997). These remarkable demonstrations of the power of neuropsychological methods have engendered great interest in clinical neuropsychology and school psychology. The value of assessing neuropsychological variables has been clearly demonstrated through the work of famous neuropsychologists such as Ralph M. Reitan, Arthur L. Benton, and A. R. Luria, among others over a number of decades. Although contemporary neurodiagnostic imaging methods such as positron emission tomography (PET) scanning, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), or functional MRI (fMRI) can clearly identify structural brain lesions (Roth, Koven, & Pendergrass, in press), in subtle cases neuroimaging is often inadequate to reflect changes in the physiological functioning of the brain that may result in behavioral abnormalities. Although they can predict generally the form of neuropsychological malfunction that is most likely, imaging studies also cannot accurately assess the functional extent of any changes. Neuropathological conditions (such as sequelae of traumatic brain injury and neurotoxic conditions) may produce clear neurocognitive, sensory-perceptual, and motor deficits without demonstrating clear structural brain changes under imaging (Horton & Horton, in press).The purpose of this article is to address the importance of assessing executive function (EF) in children, describe some newly developed methods for assessing EFs in children (Reynolds & Horton, 2006), and address the developmental period of the frontal lobe and other brain areas that subserve EFs throughout the human life span. First, the article will discuss the developme...

A current conceptual conundrum is the question of whether it is possible to have a co-occurrence of both Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and head trauma. The current report describes the results of behavior therapy and a series of neuropsychological tests for a man who suffered Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and neuropsychological deficits after an automobile accident. A series of neuropsychological test batteries documented considerable improvement. The patient was also treated for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder with behavior therapy so symptoms abated much earlier than the neuropsychological deficits.

Recent studies regarding the effects of above average intelligence and neuropsychological performance have been mixed with Dodrill (1977) suggesting that above-average performances on neuropsychological test scores should not be expected when intellectual abilities are above average and Tremont, Hoffman, Scott and Adams (in press) clearly suggesting better neuropsychological skills in the higher IQ group. This paper described a reanalysis of a previously presented Canadian data-set assembled by Pauker (1980) of three hundred and sixty-three persons (152 males, 211 females) who were administered the core tests of the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery (HRNTB) and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). The results were that subjects with higher intelligence had better neuropsychological test score performances except for the Finger Tapping with the dominant hand test.

The purpose of this paper was to describe a pilot neuropsychological investigation of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. 14 patients diagnosed (by DSM-III-R criteria) as having posttraumatic stress disorder were administered the Four-word Short-term Memory test. Only two of the 14 patients did not meet one of the two criteria for cognitive impairment. Research directions are discussed.