The detection of malingering is an area of research that has received increasing attention in recent decades. Additionally, given the decision of the U.S. Supreme court in Atkins v. Virginia (2002), incentive to feign mental retardation in order to avoid capital punishment has greatly increased. However, few measures of malingering detection have been thoroughly studied for their appli-cability to mentally retarded individuals, and for their ability to accurately distinguish between malingerers, normal controls, and individuals with mental retardation. The current study sought to examine the utility of the Bender Gestalt Test as a screening device to determine the validity of claimed intellectual disability. Additionally, high- and low-cognitive ability groups were compared on their ability to successfully malinger on a variety of other common effort assess-ment measures, including the Test of Memory-Malingering, the Fif-teen-Item Test, and the Dot Counting Test.