This heroic undertaking, while it is not an exciting read, appears to be a necessary addition to the practicing clinician's reference shelf—the one that's within arm's reach while preparing a report. It is a dazzlingly comprehensive review of the literature, reporting on what looks to be just about every study involving a repeat examination published between 1970 and 1999.

The tables are organized by test in alphabetical order, beginning with Achievement Tests, concluding with Woodcock Johnson-Revised, and with 73 other tests in between. Some of the studies simply looked at practice effects; others involved interventions such as temporal lobectomy, medication, or radiotherapy. Where interventions took place, data for each experimental group and the control group are posted separately. For each item (e.g., Category Test [error rate] from a 1981 study; digit span forward [22 items listed from 6 studies of medication effects]) the authors report the group (e.g., control, liver disease), number of subjects, their sex and mean age (with SD as possible), the type of intervention if any, retest interval, Time 1 and Time 2 mean scores (with SD when given), and the reference. Thus these tables should be the answer to most questions about practice effects, many questions about treatment effects, and should continue to raise questions about the value, appropriateness, and meaningfulness of test reliability when examining brain impaired patients.