Neuropsychological impairment in female alcoholics: replication and extension.

More than 30 years of neuropsychological testing of male alcoholics has demonstrated a pattern of alcoholism-related deficits characterized by intact verbal abilities but impaired performance on tests of abstracting, problem solving, and visualspatial functioning (Tarter, 1975). Until recently, there has been no investigation of neuropsychological functioning in women alcoholics, although the existence of sex differences in alcoholism histories and drinking patterns (Beckman, 1975) and in cognitive abilities of normal and brain-damaged adults (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974; McGlone, 1978) suggest that results of all-male research may not generalize to the female alcoholic. In the first comprehensive look at neuropsychological functioning of women alcoholics, Silberstein and Parsons (1980) found an alcoholismrelated impairment pattern similar to that found in men, but with some important differences. No alcoholism effect was detected on the verbal measures; however, of 13 nonverbal measures that typically have shown deficits in male alcoholics, the women alcoholics were impaired on only 8. A number of possible explanations were offered