The specialised psychometric assessment tools used by neuropsychologists allow for accurate assessment of a range of cognitive functions including attention, learning, memory, and processing speed. Specific components of each of those functions are examined in detail. For example:

• When assessing attention, neuropsychological assessments examine different types of attention, such as:
  • sustained attention – how long you can concentrate on one thing
  • divided attention – concentrating on more than one thing at once
  • attentional switching – the ability to switch your attention from one thing to another

• When assessing verbal learning and memory, neuropsychological assessments examine different types of memory, such as:
  • Short-term memory
  • Longer-term memory
  • Rate of learning
  • Encoding of information

They might ask you to remember different types of information (such as a list of words, pairs of words, or short stories), some of the information might be repeated, some might need to be recalled after a short delay and some after a longer delay, and prompts may be used to help recall some information. This is done to help determine why memory problems might be occurring; is it due to difficulty concentrating, difficulty organising information as you take it in, difficulty storing information, or difficulty recalling information after a delay?

Brief neuropsychological assessments may be useful for honing in on specific questions pertaining to an area of cognitive function. They may also provide an overview of broad cognitive functioning, elucidating which areas to examine in further detail. For the medico-legal sector, this is useful to, for example, determine whether brain injury should be included in a road accident claim.