Question:
I've just finishing doing a neuropsych on a 14 y.o. male, and noticedthat the norms that come w/ the Boston Naming Test stop as of 11.5 yearsof age, until adulthood. Does anyone have an idea what is considered themean (and standard deviation) for a child this age on this test? Hisscore was 46. He has some other signs of a possible expressive languageproblem, that is why I am asking.

Answer: I don't know of any norms off hand that may help you, but a search ofthe Lezak "Neuropsychological Assessment" book yielded the followingreference.

Borod, J.C., Goodlass, H., & Kaplan, E. (1980). Normative data onthe Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination, Parietal Lobe Battery, andthe Boston Naming Test. Journal of Clinical Neuropsychology, 2,209-216.

Ursula Kirk published kid's norms for the BNT in Journal of Clinicaland Experimental Neuropsychology fairly recently (1995 or 96). Thereare also norms in Spreen & Strauss' Compendium of neuropsychologicaltests.

If you are working with kids, youmight want to take a look at the NEPSY, a neuropsychologically-designed(incuding much of Luria's ideas) multi-factor test battery. MaritKorkman, Ursula Kirk, and Sally Kemp began presenting data on testdevelopment and validation at meetings of the InternationalNeuropsychological Society many year ago. It was recently releasedwith US norms, and they presented workshops on it at the INS meeting inBergen (Norway) last month.

Assuming I have the relevant readership at this point (i.e. if you'veread this far because this is your cup of tea), let me ask if anyoneelse has problems with norms for the "Boston" Animal Naming test (i.e.not confrontational naming but "verbal fluency"). Have you foundalternative norms?