The profession of neuropsychologist in Canada: Findings of a national survey

Abstract

Objective:The purpose of this study was to investigate the demographic characteristics, academic training and types of professional activities of clinical neuropsychologists in Canada. Method: 282 participants completed the online-based survey. Results: Most respondents were women with a mean age of 43 years. They typically had doctoral-level training (85%) and about one-quarter had postdoctoral training (23%). Nearly half (47%) had a lifespan practice, over one-third (37%) had an adults-only practice, and about one-sixth (16%) had an exclusively pediatric practice.Most worked full-time (79%) almost evenly split three ways between the public sector the private sector or both sectors simultaneously. The most common professional activities related to assessment (95%), although clinical supervision (43%), and rehabilitation (42%) were also quite frequent, whereas research (27%) and teaching (18%) were less so. The most common reason for referral was to obtain a diagnosis (79%). Pediatric neuropsychologists worked primarily with individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders and neuropsychologists working with adult populations worked primarily with individuals with emotional disorders, acquired neuropsychological disorders (traumatic brain injury, stroke/vascular), and neurocognitive disorders (dementia). Conclusions: Canadian neuropsychologists seem to benefit from a fairly balanced situation considering that the level of training and the ratio of neuropsychologists per capita are both high. On the other hand, the level of training and the rate of neuropsychologist per capita vary widely between regions of Canada, which suggests a need to standardize training across the country.

Normative Data Estimation in Neuropsychological Tests: A Systematic Review

“…The neuropsychological tests with the greatest number of normative studies were the Verbal Fluency Test, TMT, Stroop Color Test, MMSE, SDMT, ROCF, BNT, MoCA, and WCST. These tests are a central feature of many neuropsychological studies ( Arango-Lasprilla et al., 2017 ; Branco Lopes et al., 2021 ; Monette et al., 2023 ), so it is appropriate that they are the best validated and normed in different populations. It is notable that all of these test scores were treated as continuous variables in the literature.…”

“…Recent studies ( Branco Lopes et al., 2021 ; Liozidou et al., 2021; Mascialino et al., 2022 ; Monette et al., 2023 ) showed a lack of ND for the most widely used neuropsychological tests throughout different countries (i.e., France, Greece, Ecuador, and Canada). This limitation leads neuropsychologists to use ND from other countries or to use raw scores.…”

“…This limitation leads neuropsychologists to use ND from other countries or to use raw scores. For example, more than 50% of clinicians in France ( Branco Lopes et al., 2021 ), Canada ( Monette et al., 2023 ), and Ecuador ( Mascialino et al., 2022 ) and more than 30% of clinicians in Greece ( Liozidou et al., 2021 ) reported using ND from other countries due to this limitation.…”