Individual Patterns of Looking and Listening Preferences among Learning Disabled and Normal Children

Abstract

Preferences for looking and listening among 12 learning disabled and 12 normal children were analyzed by individually and directly recording the rates at which each child worked for the opportunity to look at and listen to a sound movie whose audio and visual channels were programed through two conjugate programers. Patterns of looking and listening preference were found and representative response records of some of these patterns are presented. Thirty-three percent of the children preferred to look and listen simultaneously; 37 percent would look but not always listen. No child was found who would listen but not look, while several of the learning disabled children would look but not listen. The three different conjugate procedures used in this study differed in their reliability and sensitivity to preferences and deficits.