Parents of children with learning disabilities may find this hard to believe, but parents of non-disabled children sometimes encourage their children to fake having a disability. Sad, but true.
Malingering means to deliberately fake having an illness or disability or to lie about the seriousness of an illness or disability for personal gain. People do this for various reasons. Some want accommodations and adaptations on school work and assessments to gain a competitive edge against other students. Some hope to get scribes, readers, or extended time on tests and college entrance exams. In some cases, parents may even claim that a child's bad conduct is a an unidentified disability to avoid disciplinary actions against their kids. Others feign disabilities in effort to claim Social Security Insurance payments.
Why should this concern parents of kids who have real disabilities? Because these dishonest people drain an already under-funded special education program and take resources away from children who really need them.
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