History & Setting
Clinical neuropsychology is the oldest subspecialty
within the UF Department of Clinical and Health Psychology. Established
in 1964 by Paul Satz, Ph.D., it has provided didactic coursework, research
and clinical training at the graduate, intern, and post-doctoral levels.
While at UF, Dr. Satz developed the first neuropsychology research laboratory,
the first neuropsychology clinical service at the Health Science Center,
and mentored a cohort of graduate students, interns, and post-doctoral
fellows who went on to figure prominently in the field themselves.
In 1970, Kenneth Heilman,
MD, was recruited from Boston to join the Neurology Department in the
UF College of Medicine. A year later, he and Dr. Satz developed and co-taught
the first UF graduate level course in neuropsychology, Human Higher Brain
Function. This course continues to be offered in our curriculum today.
Through the research and clinical collaborations of Drs. Satz and Heilman,
the University of Florida began to be recognized as a site where advanced
training in the human neurobehavioral sciences could be pursued. Dr. Satz
was one of the early founders of the International 
Neuropsychology
Society, serving as its President in 1974, and helped develop Division
of 40 of the American Psychological Association. In the middle 1970's,
the Department of Clinical Psychology was moved from the College of Arts
and Sciences to the College of Allied Health Professions and was formally
relocated to the Health Science Center. As a result, one unique aspect
of Clinical Neuropsychology education at the University of Florida is
that it has always been sited in a Health Sciences Center, allowing from
the outset rich opportunities for multidisciplinary research and teaching
collaborations. This early established multidiscripinary collaboration
continues to be present today.
UF's Neuropsychology Timeline: |
|||
| 1964: | Paul Satz and establishment of Neuropsychology at UF | ||
| - | First Neuropsychology Clinical Service | ||
| - | First Neuropsychology Research Lab | ||
| 1970: | Ken Heilman recruited to UF, Behavioral Neurology program begins | ||
| 1971: | First Formal graduate level course in Neuropsychology at UF | ||
| 1972: | First "stand alone" INS meeting (New Orleans) | ||
| 1974: | Paul Satz elected President of INS | ||
| 1977: | Heilman begins Post-Doctoral Trianing Program in Behavioral Neuorlogy at UF | ||
| 1978: | Eileen Fennell joins CHP/Neuropsychology Facuty | ||
| 1979: | Paul Satz leaves UF | ||
| 1980: | Rus Bauer joins CHP Faculty | ||
| 1981: | Center for Neuropsychological Studies established | ||
| 1982: | Heilman elected President of INS | ||
| 1989: | Crosson (89) and Dede (93) join CHP faculty | ||
| 1998: | McKnight Brain Institute opens | ||
The First Neuropsychology Clinic.
The first Neuropsychology Clinic was situated on
the fifth floor of Shands Teaching Hospital, in keeping with the model
espoused by Louis Cohen, Ph.D., Chair of the Department of Clinical Psychology
from 19 to 19 . Dr. Cohen believed that for psychologists to be utilized
by medical staff, they must be located as c ose as possible to the source
of their referrals. As a result, neuropsychology consults were seen in
two offices adjacent to the Neurosurgery Inpatient Unit on the fifth floor
of Shands. Up to two patients a day were evaluated using a modified Halstead-Reitan/Benton
approach. To help with this service, Dr. Satz hired a research assistant,
a recent college graduate (Eileen Fennell). The neurologists at that time
were B.J. Wilder, Melvin Greer, and Richard Schmidt (division head). When
Neurology became an independent department in 1974, Melvin Greer went
on to become its first chair. One of the early neurosurgeons during that
time was Lamar Roberts, who had been trained at Montreal Neurologic Institute
by Wilder Penfield.
UF's first Neuropsychology Research Laboratory
The first formal neuropsychology research laboratory
at UF was located on the 4th floor of the Psychology Building in the Department
of Psychology. As director of this lab, Dr. Satz' primary research interests
spanned both child and adult neuropsychology and included: dyslexia, learning
disability, brain laterality, and handedness.
Child Neuropsychology: In the mid-1960's, Dr. Satz was awarded his first
NIH grant to study predictors of reading disability/dyslexia in young
pre-kindergarten children. Children throughout all of Alachua County were
screened for this research, since early detection provided the opportunity
for early intervention. These children were subsequently followed in several
large scale longitudinal studies of developmental dyslexia in what came
to be known as the Florida Longitudinal Project, from Kindergarten through
Grade 6. This research led to the purchase of a "departmental mobile
home" or testing laboratory that was used to travel around the state
of Florida for collecting followup data on children enrolled in the Florida
longitudinal project. Numerous dissertations emerged from this work including
those of Jack Fletcher, Robin Morris, Eileen Fennell, and Charles Schauer.
This research on precursors of reading disability led to intense international
research collaborations with Dirk Bakker and Harry Van der Vlugt of Holland.
 |
Adult Neuropsychology. A second focus of Dr. Satz' laboratory
involved brain laterality, handedness, and hemispheric differences in
processing verbal and nonverbal materials . These studies 
used
"state of the art" techniques drawn from experimental cognitive
psychology, such as dichotic listening, tachistiscopic visual half field
presentations, and dual task paradigms. Throughout the 1970's, Dr. Satz
was successful in obtaining NIH funding to support these laterality and
handedness studies. Of particular theoretic importance were his contributions
to "pathological left handedness" and the brain capacity-reserve
hypothesis. At all times, he was unwavering in his adherence to methodologic
issues, validity and reliability of instruments in behavioral science,
and commitment to graduate student training and education in neuropsychology.
Early graduate students, interns and post-docs in Neuropsychology
at UF
Grad Students: Sara Sparrow, Jack Fletcher, Robin Morris, Eileen
Fennell, Dawn Bowers, Charles Schauer, Jeff Fitzsimmons, Reva Tankle,
Joanne Yanowitz
Interns: Larry Binder, Eileen Fennell, Linus Bilauskus, Rus Bauer
(for 1 month)
Post Docs: Gerry Taylor, followed by David Hines, Ron Goebel, Fred
Coolidge, Lynn Speedie, Carol Bullard Bates, Louis Sutker
 |
Most famous neuropsychology dissertation defense:
The first and perhaps most famous "neuropsychology"
dissertation defense was that of Sara Sparrow, the first doctoral student
of Dr. Paul Satz. At her defense, she served cavier and wine. This led
to a dramatic change in policy regarding doctoral defenses in CHP. Following
her successful defense, Dr. Sparrow continued on in a prestigious academic
research career at Yale, where she was Chief Child Psychologist of Yale
Child Study Center from 1977-2002. In 2002, she received a Career Scientist
Award from the American Association of Mental Retardation for her contributions
to the field, including her role as senior author of the Vineland Scales
of Development. Currently, Dr. Sparrow is Professor Emeritus of Yale and
Senior Research Scientist of the Child Study Center. She is the 2004-2005
President of Division 33 of the American Psychological Association.
Biographies
Paul Satz, Ph.D.
Paul Satz, Ph.D. is among a small group of individuals
who played an early pivotal role in developing neuropsychology as a distinct
research and professional discipline. He was one of the early founders
of the International Neuropsychology Society, serving as its President
in 1974. He developed intense research collaborations with international
colleagues and helped develop Division of 40 of the American Psychological
Association. At UF, he was responsible for establishing Clinical Neuropsychology
as a subspeciality within the Department of Clinical Psychology.
Dr. Satz came to UF from the University of Kentucky,
where he received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology under the mentorship
of Jesse Harris. His doctoral dissertation ( The Block Rotation Task )
won the prestigious Creative Talent Award given by the American Institutes
of Research. He began as a post-doc in the Division of Behavioral Sciences,
which was part of the Department of Psychiatry in the UF Medical school.
A year later, in 1964, he was hired by Dr. Louis Cohen (Chair of Clinical
Psychology) as a faculty member in the newly estabilished, free standing
Department of Clinical Psychology.
While at UF, Dr. Satz established the first neuropsychology
clinical service, the first neuropsychology research laboratory, and mentored
a cadre of graduate students, interns, and post-doctoral fellows. He and
colleague Ken Heilman, M.D., who joined to the UF Faculty in Neurology
in 1970, developed the first graduate level course in neuropsychology
at UF, Human Brain Function, and began the legacy of multidisciplinary
neuropsychology research at the UF Health Sciences Center.
In 1979, Dr. Satz moved to the University of Victoria
as a Visiting Professor before accepting a position as a Professor and
Chief of the Neuropsychology Program at the Neuropsychiatric Institute
and Hospital at UCLA. At UCLA, Dr. Satz was instrumental in formalizing
research and clinical training in neuropsychology at the Postdoctoral
Level.
Dr. Satz has been one of the most productive and
influential researchers in neuropsychology. He is author or coauthor or
more than 300 publications. His primary research interests involve dyslexia,
learning disability, handedness, and brain laterality. In 1996, he received
a prestigious APA Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions.
Currently, he is Professor Emeritus at UCLA.
Molly Harrower, Ph.D.
Molly Harrower, Ph.D., was a professor in UF's Department
of Clinical Psychology from 1967 until 1975, when she became Professor
Emeritus. Although relatively unknown in the mainstream history of neuropsychology,
Dr. Harrower was one of the first psychologists to work "under the
tent" of patients who underwent brain surgery by Wilder Penfield
at Montreal Neurologic Institute during the 1930's. Her initial studies
of personality and emotional changes in patients following resection of
the temporal lobes set the stage for more systematic neuropsychiatric
research in years to come. By training, Harrower was an experimental psychologist
in the Gestaltist tradition, receiving her Ph.D. under the tutelage of
Kurt Koffka at Smith College in 1934 and additional training with Kurt
Goldstein. Following a personal experience with a friend who developed
a brain tumor and dramatic personality changes, she was awarded a Rockefeller
Medical Foundation fellowship to study the psychological effects of brain
injury. This was a novel, almost heretical view at that time, and Harrower
was given feedback by the grant reviewers that there are no psychology
effects of brain, only physical effects. As chief clinical psychologist
at MNI from 1937-41, her early research pioneered the view that patients,
who despite large removals of temporal cortex, displayed minimal IQ changes
yet demonstrated substantial alterations in perceptual organization and
personality. After leaving MNI in the 1940's, she became a pioneer in
the practice of psychology working with chronically ill patients. Harrower
wore multiple hats; however, her legacy to clinical neuropsychology involved
laying a groundwork for neuropsychiatric consequences of epilepsy surgery
and providing an early professional presence for psychologists in medical
settings. She received a Distinguished Contribution Award from the Society
for Personality Assessment in September 1972.
www.psych.yorku.ca/femhop/Molly%20Harrower.htm
