psy125 - Neuropsychological Diagnostics (Vollständige Modulbeschreibung)

Enrolment in Master's programme Neurocognitive Psychology.

Goals of module:
Students will acquire specific knowledge about (neuro-)psychological assessment and will be trained to utilize this knowledge within a research context and in applied settings. Students will learn how to analyze clinical cases (“case conceptualization”), how to plan and conduct the information assessment phase, how to record and summarize collected data and how to integrate information in order to draw conclusions about the case given specific diagnostic strategies. Finally, students will learn about the requirements of assessment report generation in written an oral form given a specific applied context. Ethical guidelines and quality norms will be an implicit topic in all courses in the module.

Competencies:
+ Neuropsychological / neurophysiological knowledge for clinical assessments
+ interdisciplinary knowledge & thinking
+ ethics / good scientific practice / professional behavior
+ critical & analytical thinking

Part 1: Introduction to neuropsychological diagnostics (lecture): winter

• Psychological assessment as a decision process – descriptive and prescriptive models
• Assessment methods, their construction and design, quality criteria
• The logic of decision making in the assessment process
• Classificatory decisions
• Psychometrics to single cases
• Examples of diagnostics processes in different clinical populations
• Focus areas on different cognitive domains, their underlying models, respective possible impairments and possibilities for neuropsychological assessment
• Reasoning for the applications of neuropsychological tests
•  Summarizing results and writing reports

Part 2: Applied Neuropsychological Diagnostics (seminar): winter 

• Case conceptualization (neuropsychology and clinical psychology)
• Formulating hypotheses
• Selecting assessment procedures and planning administration
• specific knowledge on neuropsychological testing
• exercises in neuropsychological testing / practicing tests
• Evaluating the application of assessment procedures
• Analyzing, summarizing and visualizing results
• Integrating results based on the decision rules
• Writing a psychological/assessment report

Will be specified in the courses.

Parts of the practical exercise need to be completed and handed in at specific dates during winter term.

The module will be tested by a practical exercise: assessment report. The report can be written in English or German.

Required active participation for gaining credits:
attendance of at least 70% in the seminar within one semester.