Forensic Neuropsychology and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract

Over the last 20 years, the Courts and the legal community have increasingly relied on neuropsychologists to provide opinions, guidance, and expertise in the area of brain-behavior relationships. The purpose of this article is to review issues neuropsychologists commonly face when asked to evaluate cases with suspected mild traumatic brain injuries (TBI) in the civil or criminal legal context. In particular, we will discuss: (a) the neuropsychologist's role in TBI forensic cases, (b) the attorney's role in forensic TBI cases, (c) a neuropsychological framework to approach forensic mild TBI cases, (d) establishing working relationships with attorneys, (e) the Daubert and Frye standards, (f) symptom validity, (g) ethical issues, and (h) recommendations to improve the ecological validity of our tests and encourage test developers to provide alternate forms of tests.

Mild traumatic brain injury.

“…mTBI is the most common reason for referral to forensic neuropsychologists related to personal injury (Ruff & Richardson, 1999;Sweet & Meyers, 2012). Clinicians with less experience and knowledge often misdiagnose examinees who have a history of mTBI.…”

Disentangling the Disability Quagmire in Psychological Injury and Law

“…To complicate matters, there are multiple possible motivations underlying exaggeration (Ruff and Weyer Jamora 2008). These motivations include crying out for help, anger and selfjustification, need to be seen as disabled, social reinforcers and secondary gains, concerns about not being taken seriously, and depressive, negativistic thinking (Iverson 2007;Sims 2007).…”