Evaluation of two new neuropsychological tests designed to minimize cultural bias in the assessment of HIV-1 seropositive persons: A WHO study

Abstract

In the course of the preparatory work for the WHO cross-cultural study on the neuropsychiatric aspects of HIV-I infection, two new neuropsychological tests (the WHO/UCLA Auditory Verbal Learning Test and the Color Trails 1 & 2) were developed. The evaluation of these tests was performed at four sites, two in developed and two in developing countries. The data obtained suggest that the tests are more culture fair than others currently used to assess the same functional domains, that they are sensitive to HIV-1-associated cognitive impairment, and that this sensitivity "holds" across different cultures.

The Performance of Individuals with Mental Retardation on Cognitive Tests Assessing Effort and Motivation

“…All 100 participants underwent a comprehensive neuropsychological battery that included most subtests of the WAIS-III (Wechsler, 1997a), the WMS-III (Wechsler, 1997b) Logical Memory, Visual Reproduction, and Spatial Span tests, California Verbal Learning Test-II (CVLT-II) (Delis et al, 2000), the Sentence Repetition Test (Spreen & Strauss, 1991), Digit Vigilance Test (Lewis & Kupke, 1977;Lewis & Rennick, 1979), Color Trails Test (Maj et al, 1993), the Letter Fluency, Category Fluency, Design Fluency, and Tower Tests of the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) (Delis, Kaplan, & Kramer, 2001), the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (Dunn & Dunn, 1981), the Auditory Comprehension Test from the Neuropsychological Assessment Battery (NAB) (Stearns & White, 2003), and the Token Test (Boller & Vignolo, 1966). Embedded in this clinical assessment battery were the Rarely Missed Index Test from the Logical Memory Test of the WMS-III (Killgore & DellaPietra, 2000), the Reliable Digit Span Test from the WAIS-III Digit Span Test (Greiffenstein et al, 1994), the Vocabulary-Digit Span difference score from the WAIS-III (Mittenberg , Theroux-Fischera, Zielinski, & Heilbronner, 1995), and the forced choice recognition portion of the CVLT-II.…”

Regional homogeneity changes in amnestic mild cognitive impairment patients

“…The diagnosis of the aMCI patients was made by experienced neurologists according to the Petersen's criteria [2,22]. Every participant received a standard set of neuropsychological assessments including Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) [23], Clock Drawing Test (CDT) [24], Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AVLT), and Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) Scale [25]. The detailed demographic and clinical data for all the participants were presented in Table 1.…”

Children's Color Trails Test 1 & 2: Test–Retest Reliability and Factorial Validity

“…Unlike existing, traditional trail-making tests that have been shown to be affected by learning disabilities (Rourke & Finlayson, 1975), language, and to a lesser extent, culture (Leon-Carreon, 1989;Mok, Tsang, Lee, & Llorente, 2008;Rosin & Levett, 1989a, 1989b as a result of their dependence on letters of the alphabet for a categorical shift, the CCTT replaces the use of letters with colors as categorical shift, as noted above (Llorente et al, 2003). Such alteration, in addition to other changes including the addition of non-verbal instructions, has been shown to reduce the weaknesses found in traditional trail-making tests in some instances (Lee, Cheung, Chan, & Chan, 2000;Llorente et al, 2003;Maj et al, 1993Maj et al, , 1994. However, other complex factors have emerged on CCTT performance not found in other trail-making tests such as a possible Stroop effect (Mok et al, 2008).…”