Cultural bias in the neuropsychological assessment of young Maori men

In recent years neuropsychologists have begun to take account of the importance of cultural factors in the assessment of indigenous peoples. This study begins to explore the cultural bias, with respect to Maori, of some tests commonly used in the neuropsychological assessment of head injury. We assessed Maori men with a socioeconomic profile and age range typical of men who sustain head injuries. Twenty-four normal (non-head-injured) Maori men from rural and urban backgrounds aged from 16 to 24 yrs were assessed on the Complex Figure Test (CFT), the Selective Reminding Test (SRT), the WMS-R Logical Memory Test (LM), and the WAIS-R Vocabulary, Digit Span (DSp) and Block Design (ED) subtests, and their scores compared with normative data for these tests. A version of Logical Memory where the stories were substituted with stories about Maori events was also trialed. The results demonstrated that Maori compared well with the "average" for the standardized population on some tests (DSp, SRT, CFT recall), scored lower than "average" on tests that relied on formal education or had a westernised content (Vocabulary, LM), and scored above "average" on a test involving visuospatial abilities (ED). Their performance on the Maori version of LM was better than their performance on LM. The scaled score difference between Vocabulary and BD was significant at the 5% level for 67% of the group, with the Vocabulary score lower than ED for all 24 men. Suggestions are given about ways to lessen cultural bias when assessing Maori with head injuries while further research is carried out to develop tests and assessment processes valid and appropriate for Maori.