Customer Reviews

Assessment of Malingered Neuropsychological Deficits

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Pursuant to my habit of reading sundry non-fiction books for recreation, I recently purchased this wonderful publication. It is clearly written and reasonably accessible to the non-specialist. No educated person should have problems understanding the lucid writing, given a basic familiarity with the nomenclature of the field. Some knowledge of math and stats will also be helpful.

Some of the case studies are amusing. I couldn't help but smile at idea of a malingerer who claimed to be unable to see through glass. The ways in which some malingerers give themselves away are also quite surprising. I laughed out loud at the 13.8% of disability applicants who give away their attempts to fake by getting _worse than chance_ scores on the tests used to evaluate them. Failing at failing is truly sad! This book is not quite as entertaining, as, say, Knuth's _The Art of Computer Programming_, (truly an excellent read) but it's not dry or boring either.

Since I lack a professional background in the topic, I can't make a useful evaluation of the correctness of the content, however it does appear to have much useful information. The book contains extensive discussions of the methodologies used in developing and evaluating the instruments employed to detect malingerers or patients who are otherwise not putting forth an honest effort. It also discusses various well-validated instruments. Both tests designed specifically to detect malingering and the identification of a pattern indicative of that sort of deception on a general neuropsychological test are covered. The book devotes chapter to the effect of coaching malingerers, which was my favorite chapter. Besides tests, other signs of malingering are explained in their own chapters.


Overall, I highly recommend this book for everyone. The general reader will find it both educational and entertaining; The psychologist's knowledge of his or her field will no doubt be enhanced by it; and the prospective malingerer will get a good idea of what he or she is up against. A delightful work.

Great book with few weaknesses. Contains a lot of information on a variety of tests and topics. Larrabee has clearly reviewed all the contributors chapters; this is the best book on symptom validity testing that I have found. And it is reasonably short so you don't get burned out half way through.