Malingering in children: fibs and faking

Research has established that children can make efforts to deceive others and that malingering or underperformance in psychiatric and psychological evaluations is common. Clinicians often resist the idea that children can successfully fake mental disorders and formal assessment for malingering is rare in clinical practice. The author suggests that screening tests be performed during the initial evaluation of all children to identify deceptive behavior. Children who behave in a suspect fashion and children who have known motivations to present as more pathologic than they are should be formally assessed with psychological techniques to rule out the presence of malingering.