Performance Validity Assessment in Pediatric Evaluations

When conducting a neuropsychological assessment, it is important to accurately assess whether their performance reflects their true cognitive abilities. Performance validity tests (PVTs) were designed to aide neuropsychologists in making these determinations and have been frequently used with adult samples for the past two decades. Until recently, it was commonly believed that adults could correctly identify deception in a child, and pediatric neuropsychologists often used their clinical judgment to determine whether a patient was performing validly. With research suggesting that adults are not as accurate in this domain as they may believe, there has been a recent emphasis on assessing credible effort in pediatric populations using PVTs. Less research has been conducted on PVTs in pediatric sample and few PVTs designed for youth exist. We review how children develop the ability to deceive and factors that may lead to deception in a clinical setting. Furthermore, we provide a brief overview of PVTs used in pediatric populations, including those that have been developed specifically for youth. Additionally, we detail the literature on PVTs used in pediatric subpopulations and discuss potential reasons for failure on PVTs.