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arrowSpring 2006 Newsletter / Volume 7, Issue 3

      biopsychosocial update
     
     

HIV Assessment News

   
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Spring 2006 - In This Issue

Biopsychosocial Update

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Neuropsychological Assessment

   
     


Ryan et al. (2005) studied 200 individuals with advanced HIV disease, 50% of whom had ≤ 8th grade reading level but only 5% of whom had ≤ 8 years of education, to investigate "the comparability of educational attainment with reading level and ... [examine] whether discrepancies in education and reading level accounted for differences in neuropsychological [NP] test performance between HIV+ racial/ethnic minority and nonminority participants" (p. 889). Importantly,

[s]ignificantly lower reading ability and education ... [were] found among African Americans and Hispanics, and these participants were more likely to have discrepant reading and education levels compared to non-Hispanic Whites. Discrepancy in reading and education level was associated with worse [NP] performance while racial/ethnic minority status was not. As years of schooling [have led to] overestimated racial/ethnic minority participants' educational quality, standard norms based on education may inflate impairment rates among racial/ethnic minorities. (p. 889)
For this reason, Ryan and colleagues caution clinicians, as their "presumptions about the expected level of [NP] performance for a given education level among urban educated African Americans and Hispanics may be erroneous. ... [These] data suggest that when working with racial/ethnic minority individuals who have less than a high school education, it would be prudent to assess their reading level, as educational quality may affect their [NP] test performance" (p. 896).

 

 

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