Tragicomedia

Charles J. Golden

8

The Luna-Nebraska Children’s Battery: Theory and Formulation.

The Luna-Nebraska Neuropsychologicai Battery for adults has been availabie since 1979. In that short period, the battery has gained an unusual amount of acceptance. It has become increasingly clear that the popularity of the bat tery is at least partially due to its reliance on, and relationship to Luria’sneuro psychological theories, which are increasingly important to neuropsychology.

With the pre’ád of Luria’s ideas and theories to other areas of psychology, the need for a children’s test battery based on Lunia’s theories has become evident. Modern texts oii learning disabilities and other learning disorders have increasingly included chap ters on Luria’s basic theory (or sorne simplification of this theory) as a means for understanding childhood brain disorders. While Luria’s theories are applicable to standard American tests (e.g., WISC R), they are much more useful when applied to a test battery specificaily designed for them.

To understand the design and rationale of the Luna-Nebraska Children’s Battery, it is first necessary to understand Lunia’s basic theóries and theirimplications for performing psychological evaluations.

BASIC CONCEPTS IN LURIA’S THEORIES

There are several basic concepts in Lunia’s theories that must be under stood in order to use his work in a clinical setting (Luna, 1966, 1973). Of these, the concept of functional systems is the most irnportant. Luna defines a functional system as the interacting areas of the brain that rnust be coordinated in orden to produce a given behavior.

Pag 277

Pàg. 278 Chades J. Goid

This concept should be compared to other basic theories of brain func.

- tions, e.g., localization theory and equipotential theory. Localization theory suggests that all behaviors result from a single part of the brain. Ja thj system, a particular area of the brain can be identified as a “waiking” area and alldisorders of waiking can be blamed on injury to this area. In contrast equipotential theorists suggests that for aH human behaviors, all areas of tFie brain participate on an equal basis; no one area specifies a particular behavior.

Luria’s theory differs from both of these. No single area of the brain j considered responsible for any particular overt behavior. However, neither are all the areasof the brain considered to contribute equally to aH behaviors. la the functional system theory, a lirnited number of brain arcas are involved with each behavior; each in a specific and predictable manner within the functional system. It is this idea that differentiates this theory from the equipotential theories.

A functional system may be thought of as a chain with each link of the chainrepresenting a particular area of the brain. Each link is necessary for the chain to be complete, yet each plays its own specific role in the overail chain. If any part of a functional system is broken, the behavior represented by the chain is injured.

Another important concept is the notion of pluripotentiality. This concept suggests that any specific area of the brain can participate in numerousfunctional systems. Thus, if one area of the brain is injured many behaviors are disrupted, depending on the number of functional systems in which the given area plays a part. The role of the brain area is similar in each system; for example, one area may be involved in a variety of tasks requiring visual and tactile integration. This concept appears similar to standard localization concepts inwhich specific skills are assigned to one area of the brain. However, according to this concept and in opposition to localization theories, the various areas of the brain cannot operate in isolation: actual behavior can only result from cooperation of numerous arcas of the brain.

The final concept of importance is the lack of uniqueness of functional systems. Multiple functional systems may be...