Finkelstein N W, Gallagher J J, Farran D C
Am J Ment Defic. 1980 Sep;85(2):135-44.
The major hypothesis in the present study was that differences between high-risk and low-risk children in performance on standardized tests of cognitive ability would be explained, in part, by differences in attentiveness to auditory stimuli and differences in task orientation. The data collected revealed the anticipated higher standardized test scores for low-risk children. Within the high-risk sample, few differences were found between children who attended an intervention day-care program and those who did not. Measures from a laboratory task and a free-play observation suggested that attention is a key factor in understanding the high-risk child's development and also that differences in attention between high- and low-risk children can be reliably obtained as early as 3 years of age. A lessened attention span was demonstrated by high-risk children to both auditory and visual stimuli if either were complex or demanding.
本研究的主要假设是，高风险儿童和低风险儿童在认知能力标准化测试中的表现差异，部分可由对听觉刺激的注意力差异和任务导向差异来解释。收集到的数据显示，低风险儿童的标准化测试分数如预期的更高。在高风险样本中，参加干预日托项目的儿童与未参加的儿童之间几乎没有发现差异。一项实验室任务和自由玩耍观察的测量结果表明，注意力是理解高风险儿童发展的关键因素，而且高风险儿童和低风险儿童之间的注意力差异早在3岁时就能可靠地检测到。如果听觉或视觉刺激复杂或要求较高，高风险儿童对两者的注意力持续时间都会缩短。
