Auditory Vigilance Performance in Brain Damaged,Behavior Disordered,and Normal Children

Abstract

Auditory vigilance of normal, behavior disordered and brain damaged children was investigated. A 20-minute tape recording of a series of randomized digits was played to each subject. Interspersed at irregular intervals a stimulus number was presented for detection. The results showed that the normal subjects detected far more signals than the brain damaged and behavior disordered subjects, and that the brain damaged subjects missed more signals than the behavior disordered subjects.

Results confirmed the hypothesis that normal subjects would miss fewer signals because they accumulate less reactive inhibition; that brain damaged children would reveal extraverted behavior patterns; and there would be a progressive deterioration in vigilance as a direct function of time for all subjects.

The implication is that work tasks for behavior disordered and brain damaged children should be kept as short as possible to prevent accumulation of any significant amount of reative inhibition.

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