Cognitive Test Reviews Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) Christopher Randolph (1998) Reported Purposes: • Detect and characterize dementia in the elderly (including mild through mod-severe) • Cognitive screening of attention, language, visuospatial, and verbal memory abilities to assist with differential diagnosis and treatment planning (when a full, lengthier battery is not possible or practical). • Monitor performance over time through repeated assessment with alternate versions (A-D) Intended Populations: • Adults (20-89 yo) with suspected cognitive challenges or CNS diagnosis who speak English. Time: • Administration: about 20-30 min; give whole test in one session (short breaks allowed) • Scoring: Not reported 12 Subtests across 5 domains (give subtests in order for timing of delayed recall): • Immediate Memory (verbal) o List Learning (10 semantically unrelated words; 4 learning trials) o Story Memory (2 learning trials) • Visuospatial/Constructional o Figure Copy (of complex geometric shape) o Line Orientation (match two lines to an array of 13 concentric lines; 10 trials) • Language o Picture Naming (semantic cues allowed) o Semantic Fluency (divergent naming in a category for 1 minute) • Attention o Digit Span (repeat numbers in same order; has discontinue rule) o Coding (symbol coding for speed of processing in 90 sec) • Delayed Memory (verbal & visual) o List Recall (from immediate recall of 10 word list) o List Recognition (including 10 targets and 10 distractors) o Story Memory (from immediate recall of story) o Figure Recall (free recall of figure from Figure Copy task) Special Considerations: • May repeat instructions when requested or clear examinee does not understand. Can provide encouragement prompts (“Try it just a little longer; I think you can do it; Tell me more”) • Standardized Index Scores have M=100, SD=15 Normative Sample: • 540 healthy adults from across the US matched to the 1995 US Census data for sex, ethnicity, educational level, and geographic region (20-89yo); no statistically significant differences in representativeness of sample compared to 1995 census data • Excluded from norm sample if diagnosis of cognitive impairment, loss of consciousness, CVA, epilepsy, CNS infection, CNS disease, or head injury; uncorrected vision/hearing loss; non-fluent in English; diagnosis/history of alcohol/drug dependence; major psychiatric illness; currently taking antidepressant or antipsychotic meds Rik Lemoncello, PhD, CCC/SLP

Cognitive Test Reviews Psychometric Properties: • Reliability: o Split-Half Reliability for Internal Consistency: Reliability between half of each subtest and the overall performance on each subtest was high (range r .75-.95 across the six age groups) o Test-Retest: Stability of total scores among 40 adults tested about 38 weeks apart was good (range r .55-.88); lowest for Language o Alternate-Form: Reliability of total scores between form A and B was good (range r = .46.82); Lowest for Language o Inter-Rater Reliability for 3 trained judges on the Figure Copy/Recall tasks was high (r=.85) • Validity: o Construct Validity: Memory subtests are inter-related (r = .63) but other subtests are not highly correlated with each other (range r .28-.46) indicating that each of the five content domains is relatively independent o Concurrent Validity: RBANS scores generally correlated with other cognitive measures, demonstrating similar relative performance across tests and domains o Clinical Validity: RBANS scores showed “typical” profiles for adults with Alzheimer’s disease, vascular (subcortical) dementias, HIV dementia, Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, depression, schizophrenia, and closed head injury. Publisher: Pearson: San Antonio, TX ($299.00 for kit with Form A only).

Rik Lemoncello, PhD, CCC/SLP