"Must try harder." Is effort and performance validity testing a necessary part of pediatric neuropsychological assessment?

Neuropsychological assessments results have significant implications for pediatric populations, based upon the assumption that the young person has adopted an effortful approach and has engaged in assessment. There is a commonly-accepted risk to assuming the validity of neuropsychological assessment...

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Published inApplied neuropsychology. Child Vol. 9; no. 2; pp. 97 - 105
Main Authors Tonks, James, Whitfield, Charlotte Katie, Williams, W. Huw, Slater, Alan M., Frampton, Ian J.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Psychology Press 02.04.2020
Subjects
Child
Deception
Effort testing
Humans
Malingering
Motivation
Neuropsychological Tests
Neuropsychology
pediatric neuropsychology
performance validity
Reproducibility of Results
symptom validity
malingering
performance validity
pediatric neuropsychology
symptom validity
Effort testing
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Summary:Neuropsychological assessments results have significant implications for pediatric populations, based upon the assumption that the young person has adopted an effortful approach and has engaged in assessment. There is a commonly-accepted risk to assuming the validity of neuropsychological assessment results with adults, and, therefore, performance validity testing (PVT) has become a major topic of research and investigation and has become an accepted part of routine assessment. The same approach has not been adopted in assessment with children and a paucity of studies has focused on PVT in children. We review studies that demonstrate that children are equal to adults in their ability to use deception and that clinicians cannot detect false-effort without use of validity tests. We explore how frequently such tests are used and how well they work in assessment with children, and the limits, complexities, and constraints of adapting adult tests. We advocate that adequate performance validity testing is essential in order to maximize confidence in the results and we hypothesize that assessment with pediatric populations should take into account a range of influences, such as neuro-developmental factors associated with age of the child and suitability of proposed measures according to the evidence-base.
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ISSN:2162-2965
2162-2973
DOI:10.1080/21622965.2018.1524766