WELCOME TO THE
MNS DIVERSITY COMMITTEE’S WEBPAGE!
Background
The Diversity Committee was founded in 2013 by Karen Postal, PhD ABPP, former President of MNS, and other MNS board members committed to issues of culture and diversity in the field of neuropsychology. The committee’s formation stemmed from a recognition of the importance of and need for more robust research, training, and professional development aimed at deepening our understanding of the role of culture and diversity in neuropsychological assessment and cognitive function. Please see MNS’s MNS Diversity Vision statement April 2013 for additional information.
Diversity
The term "diversity" encompasses differences of culture, background and experience among individuals and groups. Such differences include, but are not limited to, differences of race, ethnicity, national origin, color, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, and disabilities, as well as political and religious affiliation and socioeconomic status.
Mission Statement
The MNS Diversity Committee seeks to raise awareness of the influence of culture and diversity within neuropsychology, support MNS members’ development as culturally competent neuropsychologists, and address issues of racism and white privilege in our field. We aim to achieve this by creating and disseminating resources to enrich the delivery of neuropsychological assessments to multicultural populations, incorporating topics of diversity in our educational events, increasing training opportunities in multicultural neuropsychology, and enhancing diversity within our membership and Board of Directors. Additionally, we encourage reflection on racism, and white privilege, including the ways in which the field of psychology has promulgated injustices towards people of color.
Resources
1. Professional Organizations: Below are links to national and international neuropsychological organizations, committees, and groups committed to issues of culture and diversity in neuropsychology
2. MNS Statement on Anti-Racism, 2020
3. Social Stigma COVID-19, 2020
4. NeuroShare Database: NeuroShare is a public domain database that houses and organizes neuropsychological normative data and published articles for use with Spanish-speaking populations. The data is organized by country of origin and neuropsychological measures available for specific populations.
5. Directory of Multilingual Neuropsychologists and Multicultural Consultants: The committee has created a directory of multilingual neuropsychologists and multicultural consultants in Massachusetts. If you would like to be included in this directory, please click here.
6. Resource Guide: Neuropsychological Assessment with Multicultural Populations: The committee created a resource guide intended to support neuropsychologists in their clinical work with individuals of diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
7. Hiring International Students/Employees in Clinical Neuropsychology: Glossary of Visas and Work Authorizations (2019): Navigating the employment process in clinical neuropsychology as an international student, prospective employee and/or a prospective employer may seem unfamiliar and challenging. The MNS Diversity Committee has compiled a glossary of basic information about commonly used visas and work authorizations. It is not intended to be exhaustive or considered as legal advice. Please refer to the USCIS and/or consult your attorney for more information.
8. Normative Data Sets of Measures for Use with Culturally, Linguistically, and Other Demographically-Diverse Patient Populations:This resources contains information about normative data sets developed for specific populations (e.g., older adults, Latinx individuals in the US) to help guide neuropsychologists who assess or are interested in assessing specialty populations for whom mainstream neuropsychological norms may not be valid. Each entry contains information about the target population for which the norms may be applicable, cognitive tests in the norming project, demographics of the sample size, pros/cons of the data sets, where to access the norms, and references.
Normative Dataset
Contact
The Diversity Committee continues to welcome new members from the MNS community! If you would like to join the committee or have questions, comments, or ideas, feel free to be in touch with the Committee Chair, Emily Wilner, Psy.D.
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