Clinical neuropsychological assessment: abbreviating the Halstead Category Test of brain dysfunction

The present paper reports both quantitative and qualitative data on an abbreviated 84-item version of the Halstead Category Test (HCT) (N = 51). The HCT is a sensitive indicator of organic brain impairment and is included as part of the important Halstead-Reitan neuropsychological test battery. Unfortunately, the HCT is burdened by excessive length and may take up to 2 hours to administer to brain-damaged patients. While a number of attempts to reduce the length and concomitant administration time of the HCT have been reported in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology over recent years, none of these studies has resulted in a sufficiently shortened HCT to allow practical application with many brain-damaged patients. The proposed version of the HCT takes only 10 to 15 minutes to administer and leaves enough items from the full HCT to enable a parallel form to be developed.