Explaining Performance and Symptom Validity Testing to the Trier of Fact

Clinical neuropsychologists are routinely called upon to assist the trier of fact in determining the veracity (i.e., validity) of a litigant’s cognitive complaints as well as their subjective complaints across multiple domains. There are a number of methods for determining the validity of the evaluation results. This chapter focuses on performance and symptom validity tests which provide objective data regarding the credibility of an examinee’s cognitive and/or psychological complaints. In addition to providing a brief overview of performance and symptom validity tests, we have also included several case scenarios to demonstrate how performance and symptom validity test findings contribute to the trier of fact’s understanding of validity tests as well as the role and necessity of objective validity testing as part of a clinical neuropsychological evaluation.