Age differences in visual reaction time of "brain-damaged" and normal children under regular and irregular preparatory interval conditions.

A reaction time experiment vas carried out in an attempt to validate the findings of Czudner and Rourke (1970). Two groups of children were employed one with neuropsychological and electroencephalographic evidence of cerebral dysfunction; the other, a control group of normal children. Each group was subdivided into two age classifications; "young" (ages 6-9 years), and "old" (ages 10-13 years). These groups were matched for age, sex, I.Q., and socio­ economic status. The procedure consisted of regular and irregular preparatory interval reaction-time conditions. The results demonstrated that latency was directly related to length of preparatory interval in the regular procedure for both the normal and the brain-damaged groups. However, in the case of the irregular procedure, there was an inverse relationship between length of preparatory interval and reaction time for the young brain-damaged subjects and the normals. The results gave support to the Czudner and Rourke (1970) findings that young brain-damaged children may recover from the deficit(s) in the ability to develop and maintain attention. The results further demonstrated that a reaction-time procedure can be used as an effective method for the detection of brain dysfunction among young (ages 6-9 years) children. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.