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Visual and auditory selective attention and reflection-impulsivity in normal and learning-disabled boys at two age levels

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Abstract

Selective attention to visual and auditory stimuli and reflection-impulsivity were studied in normal and learning-disabled 8- and 12-year-old boys. Multivariate analyses, followed by univariate and paired-comparison tests, indicated that the normal children increased in selective attention efficiency with age to both visual and auditory stimuli. Learning-disabled children increased in selective attention efficiency with age to auditory, but not to visual, stimuli. Both groups increased with age in reflection as measured by Kagan's Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFF). The 8-year-old learning-disabled children were more impulsive than the 8-year-old normals on MFF error scores, but not on MFF latency scores. No difference occurred between the 12-year-old learning-disabled and normal children on either MFF error or MFF latency scores. Correlations between the selective attention scores and MFF error and latency scores were not significant.

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This research was supported in part by BEH grant G007507227. The authors are indebted to Eleanor McCandless for her assistance in securing the learning-disabled subjects and to James McLeskey and Michael Popkin for their assistance in collecting and analyzing data.

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Quay, L.C., Weld, G.L. Visual and auditory selective attention and reflection-impulsivity in normal and learning-disabled boys at two age levels. J Abnorm Child Psychol 8, 117–125 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00918166

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