Clinical Interests

Dr. Hamsher’s expertise is in the differential diagnosis of developmental and acquired disorders of cognition and other behaviors in school-aged children, adolescents, and adults throughout the life span. Disorders of cognition include problems with, or changes in, one’s memory, attention, intelligence, language, spatial processing, perception, organization and planning. Particular attention is paid to disorders arising from neurologic disease as well as determining the role of possible psychological factors that may complicate these types of investigations (e.g., disturbances of mood, personality functioning, adjustment, temperament, psychosis, interpersonal and social functioning). Developmental disorders include: the Developmental Aphasias, Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Developmental Learning Disabilities, and co-morbidities. Neurologic disease affecting cerebral (brain) functioning include: genetic and chromosomal syndromes, cerebral dysplasia, and birth defects; head trauma; environmental exposure, toxins and intoxicants; the effects of vascular disease; tumor; infection (including HIV); metabolic disorders; epilepsy; brain surgery and radiation; and neurodegenerative disorders (e.g., Alzheimer disease, Pick Disease, Huntington Disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson disease, Landau-Kleffner and others).