Neurobehavioral assessment in toxic injury evaluations

Forensic neurobehavioral evaluations present special validity problems such that standard assumptions, procedures, histories, and fact-finding methods used in treatment settings may be inappropriate and misleading. This article discusses basic issues in assessing the quality and reasonableness of forensic toxic injury evaluations. Topics include selection of test instruments, history, functional assessment, threats to validity, voluntary manipulation of test results, chemophobia, limitations of the state of the art in neuropsychology and neurobehavioral assessment, base rates, and norms. Understanding the roles these topics play in toxic injury evaluations is essential to making informed judgments about the quality of forensic neurobehavioral evaluations.