A multifactor model of the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery and its relationship to cognitive status and psychiatric diagnosis.

An oblique, five-factor model of a modified Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery is presented. One hundred fifty-one neuropsychiatric inpatients (94 men, 57 women) were examined on 44 neuropsychological indices. Five correlated dimensions (r = .25), viz., Verbal Comprehension, Perceptual Organization, Sensory-attention, Primary Motor, and Tactile-spatial abilities, were identified by maximum likelihood factor analyses of this correlation matrix. These findings are quite similar to those reported earlier by Fowler, Richards, Berent, and Boll (1985, 1987) and Royce, Yeudall, and Bock (1976). The factors may be broadly categorized using the distinction made by Lezak (1983) for verbal, nonverbal, and mental activity variables. MANOVAs revealed systematic relationships between simple-weighted factor scores and: (1) the overall level of cognitive functioning (p less than .01), as well as (2) psychiatric diagnosis (p less than .01). Implications of these findings for understanding the impact of neuropsychiatric disorders on the structure of abilities for such patients are developed.