Raymond Dean

During his career, Dean contributed to articles, books, and tests in the field of Neuropsychology. He co-authored the Dean-Woodcock Neuropsychological Assessment System (Dean & Woodcock, 2001) and the Dean-Woodcock Neuropsychological Sensory Motor Battery. He was appointed Affiliation, Membership and Fellowship with the American Psychological Association (Divisions: Clinical, Educational, School and Clinical Neuropsychology), the National Academy of Neuropsychology, and the American Psychopathological Association.

Since the 1980s, Dean maintained that, without a functional basis to test, the increase in scanning technology would result in decreased efficacy of neuropsychological assessment. His concerns were realized through the sophistication and geometric growth of radiological scanning techniques evidenced over the past 30 years. Prior to the early 1970s, skull x-rays were considered state of the art diagnostic tools. Advances in computer driven scanning devices, including computerized tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, produced microscopic views of central nervous system soft tissue that was not otherwise available.

Dean received a B.A. (Magna cum laude) in Psychology and an M.S. in Psychological Research and Psychometrics from State University of New York at Albany. As a Paracheck-Frazier Research Fellow, Dean was awarded a Ph.D. in school/child clinical psychology in 1978 by Arizona State University. His neuropsychological internship was at the Arizona Neuropsychiatric Hospital and postdoctoral training at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Since that time, he remained an active scholar in Neuropsychology and held faculty appointments at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Distinguished Visiting Faculty of the NIMH Staff College, and Ball State University. From 1985, Dean concluded that the utility of neuropsychological assessment as a tool in the diagnoses and localization of brain damage. He subsequently advocated for the need for specificity of functions measured by these tests (e.g. memory).

Raymond S. Dean (September 24, 1946 – July 6, 2015) was an American psychologist who was the George and Frances Ball Distinguished Professor of Neuropsychology and Professor of Psychology at Ball State University.