The Memory Assessment Scales (MAS)

This comprehensive battery assesses short-term, verbal and visual memory functioning. This exceptionally well normed instrument reliably and accurately differentiates normal from neurologically impaired individuals. Verbal and visual tasks use both recall and recognition formats and assess memory immediately after stimulus presentation as well as after a delay period.

The MAS has been designed for use by clinical and consulting psychologists, as well as researchers. Its self-contained easel format increases ease of use and greatly simplifies administration.

The MAS consists of 12 subtests based on the following 7 memory tasks: Verbal Span, List Learning, Prose memory, Visual Span, Visual Recognition, Visual Reproduction and Names-Faces.

The 16-page record form contains instructions for administration of the 7 memory tasks and includes three tasks which are administered entirely from the record form. The Visual Span, Visual Recognition, Visual Reproduction and Names-Faces tasks require the accompanying stimulus card set for administration.

MAS administration requires only the stimulus card set (contained in an easel format) and the record form.

The MAS can be scored in 10 to 15 minutes. The resulting Global Memory and Summary Scale scores provide measures of overall memory performance, short-term memory, verbal memory and visual memory. All measures have a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.

Subtest scale scores have been derived to have a mean of 10 and a standard deviation of 3. They can be profiled by functional memory area to facilitate scale comparison. Process scores from subtests using the List Learning task can be calculated to examine cognitive learning strategies and problems involving encoding and retrieval.

Interpretive hypothesis testing is facilitated by tables which provide: significant differences and the frequency of differences between the Global memory Scale score and WAIS-R IQ; significant differences and the frequency of differences among the Short-term, Verbal and Visual Memory summary scores; and standard errors of measurement of scores for the Global Memory Scale, Summary Scales and subtests.

The MAS normative sample is based on data collected from 843 adults. Normative tables facilitate interpretation for a variety of clinical questions: norms based on 843 adults by age decade and by age and education levels and norms based on 467 adults selected to match the US census on the basis of age, education and gender.

Generalisability coefficients, calculated for all three sets of norms, ranged from 0.70-0.95 for MAS subsets, 0.86-0.92 for the Summary Scales and 0.94-0.95 for the Global Memory Scale. Validity data demonstrate that MAS scores distinguish normal from neurologically impaired subjects and produce expected profiles for criterion groups of patients with neurological disorders such as dementia, closed head injury, left hemisphere lesions and right hemisphere legions.

Check these resources:
	Handbook of Normative Data for Neuropsychological Assessment
	Neuropsychological Assessment. This book includes an extensive review of neuropsychological tests, including a section on testing frontal lobe function.
	The Human Frontal Lobes. This book reviews current studies of frontal lobe syndromes.