ABSTRACT
Differences in visual-motor tracking by 8- to 9-yr.-old boys diagnosed with Minimal Brain Dysfunction or healthy have been analyzed. The subject's task was to use two computer keys to control a cursor line within a target which moved horizontally in two directions over the display. Target size and speed were the experimental variables. Off-target incidences and durations were measured and evaluated. The latter were longer and the former were more frequent on small targets for boys with brain dysfunction than for healthy boys. The two measures correlated negatively in most situations. The perceptual-motor style expressed by means of the distribution of coincidences of the two measures being over or under a criterion set equal to the corresponding averages of the healthy boys was different in the two groups. Brain-damaged boys were characterized mostly by the combination of high incidence of low duration misses for small and fast targets and by high incidence of high duration misses for large and slow targets, whereas most healthy boys showed a few misses of low duration for large and slow targets and few misses of high duration for small and fast targets.
Subject(s)
Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity/psychology , Attention , Psychomotor Performance , Reaction Time , Child , Humans , Male , Psychometrics , Size PerceptionABSTRACT
Significant correlations were found between grades for reading, writing, and calculating and each child's individual mean reaction time for symbolic motor performance tasks with letters and numbers as stimuli for 240 elementary school boys with minimal brain dysfunction and in first to fourth classes in Prague (Czechoslovakia) and Skopje (Yugoslavia). For age(class)-matched groups of 382 healthy boys the correlations disappeared by the age of ten years. Similar results were noted for groups of boys in both cities.
Subject(s)
Achievement , Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity/psychology , Kinesthesis , Mental Recall , Symbolism , Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity/diagnosis , Child , Humans , Reaction TimeABSTRACT
Performances of groups of second grade elementary school boys with Minimal Brain Dysfunction (ns = 34) and matched with normal boys (ns = 30) were studied using mostly psychometric criteria in Prague, Czechoslovakia and Skopje, Macedonia. Boys with brain dysfunctions scored more poorly than normal ones at both places, but normal boys from both cultures did not differ. Information-processing capability (derived from Wechsler scale) was lower and its rank among disordered features higher among Skopje boys, probably because organized care for minimal brain dysfunctioning children was relatively lower.
