Performance of children on symptom validity tests: TOMM, MSVT, and FIT.

Full Abstract

Symptom validity testing is a major topic in the field of neuropsychological research, but until now, few studies focus on effort testing in children. Three symptom validity tests (SVTs), the Medical Symptom Validity Test, the Test of Memory Malingering, and the Fifteen Item Test plus several standard neuropsychological tests were administered to 73 German-language school children from 6 to 11 years. Participants were either instructed to give full effort or to follow a malingering scenario. It could be demonstrated that, except for one child, all participants with a basic reading level of grade 2 were able to pass all administered SVTs according to established cutoffs for poor effort (i.e., earned a score higher than the cutoff). For the experimental malingerers, however, it was fairly difficult to act according to the scenario throughout the session. While they scored worse in the neuropsychological tests, all but one of them failed at least one SVT. The results support the use of SVTs in childhood age. More elaborate experimental designs and studies with bona-fide patients and suspected malingerers are needed in order to evaluate both the appropriateness of available effort tests and the capabilities of children to fake poor performance.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Blaskewitz, Nina (N); Merten, Thomas (T); Kathmann, Norbert (N);

Affiliation: Humboldt University, Institute of Psychology, Germany. nina.blaskewitz(-atsign-)web.de

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Controlled Clinical Trial; Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Archives of clinical neuropsychology : the official journal of the National Academy of Neuropsychologists (Arch Clin Neuropsychol), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-Jul; vol 23 (issue 4) : pp 379-91

Dates: Created 2008/06/09; Completed 2008/08/21;

PMID: 18337057, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Female
Humans
Male
Malingering - diagnosis; psychology
Neuropsychological Tests
Reproducibility of Results
Time Factors

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.