Subject(s)
Anxiety/psychology , Attention , Dyslexia/psychology , Personality Inventory , Test Anxiety Scale , Child , Female , Humans , MaleABSTRACT
The performance of poor and normal sixth-grade readers was compared on an auditory short-term memory task in two studies. In the first study, the effects of distraction, list length, and speed of stimulus presentation were investigated to test the hypothesis that the performance of the poor readers is affected by deficits in selective attention. Group differences in performance, however, were obtained for both distraction and no-distraction conditions. The second experiment examined the hypothesis that group differences may reflect differences in the use of rehearsal. In the second experiment, half the reading-disabled children and half the controls were provided with rehearsal training prior to completing the same short-term memory task a second time. Rehearsal training resulted in improved performance relative to children who were not trained; however, there was no rehearsal training X reading group interaction. The poor readers continued to show deficits in performance relative to the performance of control children. The results of these two studies suggest that deficits observed for poor readers on short-term memory tasks may reflect processing difficulties in some area that precedes rehearsal and affects performance under both distraction and no-distraction conditions.
Subject(s)
Attention , Cognition , Dyslexia/psychology , Memory, Short-Term , Auditory Perception , Child , Humans , Male , TeachingSubject(s)
Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity , Autistic Disorder , Arousal/physiology , Attention/physiology , Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity/complications , Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity/diagnosis , Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity/etiology , Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity/therapy , Autistic Disorder/etiology , Autistic Disorder/genetics , Autistic Disorder/therapy , Behavior Therapy , Brain/physiopathology , Child , Congenital Abnormalities/complications , Diet/adverse effects , Humans , Language Disorders/complications , Memory Disorders/complications , PrognosisABSTRACT
The performance of poor readers and control children at three grade levels, first, third, and fifth grades, was compared on an incidental learning task adapted by Hagen (1967). A significant group by task interaction in a repeated measures ANOVA indicated that reading ability was differentially related to performance on the tasks. Relative to control children at all grade levels, poor readers obtained lower scores on the central task and higher scores on the incidental task. The absence of a grade X task X reading ability interaction indicated that selective attention follows the same developmental course in poor readers as in control children. The data suggest that the development of selective attention as reflected in performance on this task is delayed from 2 to 4 years in poor readers.
