Hagen's Central-Incidental Task was administered to 27 emotionally disturbed/behavior disordered students, ages 9 to 13 yr., and 27 normal peers. Subjects were matched on chronological age, sex, and race. There were no significant differences in performance between the handicapped group and their normal peers on three measures—central task, incidental task, and efficiency of selective attention. In addition, no significant developmental trends were observed in either group. The results questioned the assumption that students labeled as emotionally disturbed/behavior disordered have deficits in selective attention.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
FleisherL. S.SkodakL. C.JelinM. A. (1984) Selective attention deficits in learning disabled children: Analysis of the data base. Exceptional Children, 51, 136–141.
2.
HagenJ. W. (1967) The effect of distraction on selective attention. Child Development, 38, 685–694.
3.
HagenJ. W.HuntsmanN. J. (1971) Selective attention in mental retardates. Developmental Psychology, 5, 151–160.
4.
HallahanD. P.KauffmanJ. M.BallD. W. (1973) Selective attention and cognitive tempo of low achieving and high achieving sixth grade males. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 38, 579–583.
5.
HewettF. M. (1968) The emotionally disturbed child in the classroom. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
6.
KauffmanJ. M. (1985) Characteristics of children's behavior disorders. (3rd ed.) Columbus, OH: Merrill.
7.
MaccobyE. E.HagenJ. W. (1965) Effects of distraction upon central versus incidental task recall: Developmental trends. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2, 280–289.
8.
McGhieR.ChapmanG. D. (1961) Disorders of attention and perception in early schizophrenia. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 34, 103–116.
9.
MorseW. C.CutlerR. L.FinkA. H. (1964) Public school classes for the emotionally handicapped: A research analysis. Washington, DC: Council for Exceptional Children.
10.
NieN.HullC.JenkinsJ.SteinbrennerK.BentD. (1975) Statistical package for the social sciences. (2nd ed.) New York: McGraw-Hill.
11.
PoplinM. (1978) Attention as a factor of school readiness. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Univer. of Texas at Austin.
12.
SlossonR. L. (1971) Slosson Intelligence Test for Children and Adults. East Aurora, MI: Slosson Educational Publ.
13.
TarverS. G.HallahanD. P.KauffmanJ. M.BallD. W. (1976) Verbal rehearsal and selective attention in children with learning disabilities: A developmental lag. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 10, 491–500.
14.
WynneM. E.BrownR. T. (1984) Assessment of high incidence learning disorders: Isolation measures with high discriminant ability. School Psychology Review, 13, 231–237.
