Louisiana Licensed Professional Counselors Board of Examiners

Position Statement on Appraisal Activities

Clarification of the Distinction between Appraisals and Psychological Tests
 

Adopted 11/22/09

It is the position of this board that LPCs in Louisiana should be allowed to engage in appraisal activities within their scope of practice as provided by the statute and rules governing the practice of mental health counseling in the State of Louisiana. To ensure LPCs are qualified in the area of appraisal, they must be privileged by the board to utilize formal appraisal instruments.

The purpose of this position statement is to clarify the distinction between “Appraisals,” which LPC’s Privileged for Appraisals are allowed to perform as within the scope of practice, and “Psychological Testing,” which all LPCs, including Privileged LPCs, are not allowed to perform because these tests are outside LPC scope of practice.

According to La. Rev. Stat. Ann.§37:1103(10)(e), “appraisal” is defined as

the use or administration of tests of language, educational and achievement tests, adaptive behavioral tests, and symptoms screening checklists or instruments, as well as tests of abilities, interests, and aptitudes for the purpose of counseling persons in coping with or adapting to, changing life situations that are due to problems in living.

Thus, LPCs who are privileged to utilize formal appraisal instruments are authorized to administer the following:

  1. tests of language, educational and achievement tests;

  1. adaptive behavioral tests;

  1. symptoms screening checklists or instruments;

  1. tests of abilities;

  1. tests of interests; and

  1. tests of aptitudes;

RS 37:1101. (7) states the following:

(7) "Mental health counseling services" means those acts and behaviors coming within the practice of mental health counseling as defined in this Chapter, including the diagnosis and treatment, which includes psychotherapy, of conditions or disorders requiring mental health counseling as defined in Subparagraph (10)(a) of this section. However, except as provided in this Section nothing in this Chapter shall be construed to authorize any person licensed hereunder to administer or interpret tests in accordance with the provisions of R.S. 37:2352(5), except as provided by Title 46, Part LXIII, Chapter 17, Section 1702(E) of the Louisiana Administrative Code, or engage in the practice of psychology or to prescribe, either orally or in writing, distribute, dispense, or administer any medications.

Therefore Licensed Professional Counselors are prohibited from performing “psychological testing.” “Psychological testing” is defined in the definition of the “practice of psychology” in RS 37:2352(5) and in La. Admin. Code Title 46, 1702(D)(1-3) which states the following:

1702 D. Psychological testing explicitly includes the following three areas:

1.  intellectual, which includes those normative-based individually administered instruments used to measure cognitive functions such as abstract reasoning, fund of knowledge and problem solving;

2.  personality and emotional, which includes those normative-based instruments used to measure both trait and state aspects of personality and emotional characteristics and functioning; and

3.  neuropsychological, which includes those normative-based instruments used to make inferences about brain and behavior relationships. These relationships include, but are not limited to, sensorimotor functioning, attention and concentration skills, memory functioning, language function, concrete and abstract problem solving, and measures of cognitive flexibility and creativity.

LPCs who are privileged shall recognize the limits of their competence and perform only those appraisal services for which they have been trained and are within the statutes governing the practice of mental health counseling [La. Admin. Code Title 46, §2111(B)(1).].

Appendix to LPC Board Position Statement on Appraisal Activities

Clarification of the Distinction between Appraisals and Psychological Tests
 

According to RS 37: 2352(5) and La. Admin. Code Title 46, 1702(D)(1-3), Licensed Professional Counselors are prohibited from performing psychological testing. The following list contains examples from the three categories of psychological tests as identified in these statutes. Please note that these tests are provided as examples only and this list is not to be considered exhaustive:

Examples of Psychological Tests

Tests of Intelligence

Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (SB-IV)

Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT4)

Wechsler Intelligence Scales, including the WISC-IV and WAIS-III

Woodcock-Johnson Psychoeducational Battery

Test of Nonverbal Intelligence (TONI3)

Personality and Emotional Tests

Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist

California Psychological Inventory (CPI)

Draw-a-Person Test

Incomplete Sentences Blank

Kinetic Family Drawing (KFD)

Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI-III)

Millon Adolescent Personality Inventory (MAPI)

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-II (MMPI-2)

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16-PF)

Neuropsychological Tests

Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration

Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Tests (Bender-Gestalt II)

Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery

Gordon Diagnostic System

Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (KABC-II)

Kaufman Functional Academic Skills Test (K-FAST)

Kaufman Short Neuropsychological Assessment Procedure (K-SNAP)