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3 Psych. Inj. & L. 1 (2010)

handle is hein.journals/psyinjl3 and id is 1 raw text is: Psychol. Inj. and Law (2010) 3:1-2 DOI 10.1007/s12207-010-9070-3 Introduction to Special Issue Paul M. Richards - Ronald M. Ruff Received: 2 March 2010 /Accepted: 9 March 2010 /Published online: 22 April 2010 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010 Introduction This special issue of Psychological Injury and Law focuses on traumatic brain injury (TBI), a very prevalent condition among pediatric and adult populations, which is often the result of a compensable injury and, therefore, the subject of litigation. The proliferation of lawyers obtaining neuropsy- chological consultation, is exemplified by a recent 'Lexis' search conducted by Kaufmann (2009), which revealed 4,385 cases using the root term neuropsycholo- during the previous 70 years. Interestingly, 71% of these cases were adjudicated in the last decade. Using polynomial regression techniques to project for the next 15 years, Kaufmann (2009) predicted a burgeoning increase in the legal system's reliance on neuropsychology. Because of their training in scientific methods for quantifying behavior, the neuropsychologist is particularly well-suited to address TBI from a forensic standpoint. Thus, this special issue is presented with a TBI focus from several different areas of clinical and forensic neuropsychological practice as well as from the research standpoint. Focusing on a target audience of attorneys and their paralegal staff within a personal injury population, the first paper by Richards and Kirk provides a TBI 'tutorial' with the stated goal to ...facilitate cross disciplinary communi- P. M. Richards (W) Independent Practice, Louisville/Denver, CO, USA e-mail: paulmrichards@msn.com R. M. Ruff San Francisco Clinical Neurosciences, 909 Hyde Street, San Francisco, CA 94109, USA e-mail: ronruff@mindspring.com cation between attorney and neuropsychologist expert. Unlike previous publications that primarily address adult Mild TBI, this manuscript is distinguished by its coverage of all-severity (mild, moderate, and severe) TBI, with an entire section devoted to pediatric TBI. The oft-neglected pediatric population is presented within the context that in the USA alone, more than one million children and adolescents sustain a TBI each year. Richards and Kirk encourage plaintiff and defense counsel to carefully identify the neuropsychologist expert witness with expertise in pediatric TBI and become educated on the unique concerns and information essential in trying such cases. The paucity of literature regarding symptom validity testing in pediatric populations that is essential in determining whether test results are valid is also covered. Overall, these authors present epidemiological data, clarify ambiguities in termi- nology, review best practice for diagnosis, and discuss moderating variables for outcome and relevant information in determining causality. Robert Sbordone contributed two articles to this issue, which he informs us will be his last papers prior to retiring after an illustrious career. Over the past four decades of being a scientist-clinician, Sbordone's two most recognized contributions to the scientific literature are the topics of the two papers he authored for this issue. He led the way to assert that posttraumatic stress disorders (PTSD) and TBI are caused by unique and not over- lapping injury characteristics. Thus, he has emphasized that a TBI cannot be the cause of a PTSD, per se. Since he first asserted this viewpoint in a paper published in 1995, the fields of TBI and PTSD have exploded and a controversy has emerged. Sbordone and Ruff's paper attempts to deal with this controversy by delving into the complexity and circumstances when both diagnoses should not be applied and under what circumstances an t_ Springer

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