Auditory and Visual Vigilance in Normal and Learning Disabled Readers

Abstract

The Continuous Performance Test was administered to normal and learning disabled males (CA 12.5) to test the proposition that learning disabled children manifest an attention deficit related to reading performance. Children were tested on two task lengths (4.45 and 9.30 minutes) and two modalities (auditory and visual) in which dependent measures were correct detections and false responses. As expected, learning disabled children with reading deficiencies made significantly fewer correct detections and more false responses than did normal children. There was no strong evidence to indicate that a visual presentation provided better attention for learning disabled children. Results were interpreted as supporting the notion that learning disabled readers are underattentive to critical stimuli.