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Social Security: New Functional Assessments for Children Raise Eligibility Questions

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Report Type Reports and Testimonies
Report Date March 10, 1995
Report No. HEHS-95-66
Subject
Summary:

More than 200,000 children have been awarded federal disability benefits for mental or behavioral problems using new subjective criteria that allow benefits in cases that previously would have been rejected. GAO found fundamental flaws in the new process for assessing children's impairments. Specifically, each step of the process relies heavily on adjudicators' judgments, rather than on objective criteria from the Social Security Administration (SSA), to assess children's behavior. This calls into question SSA's ability to guarantee consistency in administering the program. At the same time, GAO discovered little evidence that parents are coaching their children to fake mental problems by misbehaving or doing poorly in school so that they can qualify for cash benefits.

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