Psychometric Markers of Genuine and Feigned Neurodevelopmental Disorders in the Context of Applying for Academic Accommodations

The article reviews systemic and context-specific challenges of psychoeducational assessment using two case studies: a 19-year-old woman with feigned attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and a 50-year-old man with genuine dyslexia. These cases demonstrate that providing a thorough evaluation of performance validity is an essential component of determining eligibility for academic accommodations in both clinical and higher education settings. At the same time, discounting failure on certain performance validity tests may be necessary to protect against false positive errors. In addition, empirically based test selection and interpretation has the potential to enhance the clinical confidence during differential diagnosis. Examining the internal consistency of a given neurocognitive profile provides valuable clinical information to determine both the credibility of the overall presentation and applying established diagnostic criteria. Although clinical research has yet to identify definitive markers of non-credible neurocognitive profiles, a multivariate approach to performance validity assessment that combines empirically validated indicators and sound clinical judgment can improve detection rates while simultaneously protecting against false positive errors.     

The Grooved Pegboard Test as a Validity Indicator—a Study on Psychogenic Interference as a Confound in Performance Validity Research

This study was designed to replicate an earlier report on the link between low scores on the Grooved Pegboard test (GPB), invalid responding, and elevated self-reported psychiatric symptoms. A fixed battery of neuropsychological tests was administered to 100 consecutively referred outpatients (M_Age?=?38.3, M_Education?=?13.6 years) following traumatic brain injury at a Midwestern academic medical center. Classification accuracy of GPB validity cutoffs was computed against a free-standing PVT and three composite measures of embedded validity indicators. Previously suggested GPB validity cutoffs (T?≤?29 in either hand) produced good combinations of sensitivity (0.25–0.55) and specificity (0.89–0.98) to psychometrically defined invalid performance. Raising the cutoff to T?≤?31 resulted in a reasonable trade-off between increased sensitivity (0.36–0.55) and decreased specificity (0.84–0.94). T?≤?31 in both hands was highly specific (0.93–0.98) to noncredible responding. GPB validity cutoffs were unrelated to psychiatric symptoms or injury severity. Failing PVTs based on forced choice recognition was associated with elevated self-reported depression, somatic concerns, and overall symptomatology. Low scores on the GPB are reliable indicators of noncredible responding. Self-reported emotional distress has a complex relationship with performance validity. Psychogenic interference is a potential mechanism behind PVT failures, and its expression is likely mediated by instrumentation and sampling artifacts. Further research on the topic is clearly needed to advance current understanding of psychogenic interference as a confound in cognitive testing.     

Road Traffic and Efficient Fines

Road traffic is a typical example of an occupation with bilateral care and activity choices. In such a setting, common liability rules which simply divide damages cannot induce efficient outcomes. It is shown that fines for the violation of traffic regulations which depend on the occurrence of an accident can induce optimal behaviour. The properties of such efficient fines are derived. In particular, efficient fines tend to increase more than proportionally with the severity of an offence, while fines for repeat offenders can rise at a decreasing rate with the number of violations. To evaluate the scope for efficiency-enhancing reforms of fine systems, it is investigated whether actual regulations particularly for speeding conform to the non-proportionality requirement in selected European countries.     

The BDAE Complex Ideational Material—a Measure of Receptive Language or Performance Validity?

Scores on the Complex Ideational Material (CIM) were examined in reference to various performance validity tests (PVTs) in 106 adults clinically referred for neuropsychological assessment. The main diagnostic categories, reflecting a continuum between neurological and psychiatric disorders, were epilepsy, psychiatric disorders, postconcussive disorder, and psychogenic non-epileptic seizures. Cross-validation analyses suggest that in the absence of bona fide aphasia, a raw score ≤9 or T score ≤29 on the CIM is more likely to reflect non-credible presentation than impaired receptive language skills. However, these cutoffs may be associated with unacceptably high false positive rates in patients with longstanding, documented neurological deficits. Therefore, more conservative cutoffs (≤8/23) are recommended in such populations. Contrary to the widely accepted assumption that psychiatric disorders are unrelated to performance validity, results were consistent with the psychogenic interference hypothesis, suggesting that emotional distress increases the likelihood of PVT failures even in the absence of apparent external incentives to underperform on cognitive testing.     

Making states for the single market: European integration and the reshaping of economic states in the Southern and Eastern peripheries of Europe

European integration has profoundly reshaped states in Europe’s peripheries. It has deprived them of the traditional means of autonomously managing development, imposed institutions defending the integrity of the regional market from domestic actors, and provided them, in exchange, with EU-level development policies. However, whereas in the South the EU has relied primarily on incentives for remaking the economic state, in the East it has engaged in direct institution-building. The different EU strategies pushed the evolution of the economic state in the two peripheries in different directions and the two parts of Europe now face different developmental dilemmas. Despite their differences, neither the Eastern nor the Southern states have the capacity to get in synch the triple challenge of integration: playing by the uniform regional rules, improving their positions in the European markets and extending the range of domestic beneficiaries of integration. While the ensuing economic and political tensions might endanger regional integration, EU-level capacities for addressing the developmental problems of the peripheries are in short supply.     

Constructing STR Multiplexes for Individual Identification of Hungarian Red Deer

Red deer is the most valuable game of the fauna in Hungary, and there is a strong need for genetic identification of individuals. For this purpose, 10 tetranucleotide STR markers were developed and amplified in two 5‐plex systems. The study presented here includes the flanking region sequence analysis and the allele nomenclature of the 10 loci as well as the PCR optimization of the DeerPlex I and II. LD pairwise tests and cross‐species similarity analyses showed the 10 loci to be independently inherited. Considerable levels of genetic differences between two subpopulations were recorded, and F_ST was 0.034 using AMOVA. The average probability of identity (PI_ave) was at the value of 2.6736 × 10^?15. This low value for PI_ave nearly eliminates false identification. An illegal hunting case solved by DeerPlex is described herein. The calculated likelihood ratio (LR) illustrates the potential of the 10 red deer microsatellite markers for forensic investigations.