Department of Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2011 Mar;20(3):121-6. doi: 10.1007/s00787-010-0153-1. Epub 2010 Dec 29.
The mediating effect of cognitive processing speed on the ability of a primary school child to achieve his/her full potential of intellectual functioning emphasizes the importance of methods to detect "slow" children. Primary school teachers may be the first to have concerns about inattentive pupils who show symptoms of hypoactivity, but may find the symptoms difficult to interpret. In the present study we ask if a primary school teacher's report of hypoactivity symptoms can be explained by the child's performance on tests of processing speed. The 255 children included in the present study were part of the first wave of the Bergen Child Study, in which teachers completed a questionnaire including two hypoactivity items from the Five to Fifteen (FTF) questionnaire. Processing speed was measured by the Processing Speed Index (PSI) from the WISC-III, 1-2 years after the teacher rating. Teachers reported "certainly true" on at least one FTF item of hypoactivity for 11.8% of the children. These children obtained lower scores on the PSI than the remaining children in the sample. The PSI accounted for a considerable proportion of the variance of teacher reports on the FTF item "difficulty getting started on a task/activity". The risk of a PSI score below 85 was increased in children with teacher-reported hypoactivity symptoms. The results indicate that teacher reports of hypoactivity symptoms reflect slow cognitive processing speed and should be followed up by a psychometric examination. Still, future studies are needed to improve detection and treatment of children with slow processing speed.
小学儿童认知加工速度对其智力功能充分发挥潜力的中介作用强调了发现“慢”儿童方法的重要性。小学教师可能是最早对表现出多动症状但注意力不集中的学生表示关注的人，但他们可能会发现这些症状难以解释。在本研究中，我们想知道小学教师对多动症状的报告是否可以用儿童的加工速度测试表现来解释。本研究共纳入 255 名儿童，他们是卑尔根儿童研究第一波的一部分，其中教师完成了一份包括来自 Five to Fifteen (FTF) 问卷的两个多动项目的问卷。1-2 年后，在进行教师评定时，采用 WISC-III 的加工速度指数（PSI）来测量加工速度。11.8%的儿童至少有一项 FTF 多动项目被教师评定为“肯定是真的”。这些儿童在 PSI 上的得分低于样本中其余儿童。PSI 解释了教师对 FTF 项目“难以开始任务/活动”的报告的相当大一部分方差。具有教师报告多动症状的儿童的 PSI 得分低于 85 的风险增加。研究结果表明，教师对多动症状的报告反映了较慢的认知加工速度，应该通过心理测量检查来跟进。尽管如此，仍需要进一步的研究来提高对加工速度较慢的儿童的发现和治疗。
