JOURNAL

OF EXPERIMENTAL

CHILD

26, 383-388 (1978)

PSYCHOLOGY

NOTE Responses of Normal and Learning Disabled Children as a Function of the Stopwatch in the Matching Familiar Figures Testing Situation LORENE

C. QUAY,

MICHAEL POPKIN, AND JAMES MCLESKEY Grorgiu

State

GARY

WELD,

Univrrsity

To ascertain whether normal and hyperactive learning disabled children differ in their responses to Kagan’s Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFF) as a function of a temporal cue, the stopwatch used in the testing situation, 16 learning disabled and I5 normal 8- and 9-year-old boys were compared. A counterbalanced design, in which each child was administered one-half of the test with a stopwatch (standard administration procedure) and the other one-half of the test without a stopwatch (No-Stopwatch procedure), was used. For the normal children. the MFF latency scores in the two conditions were not correlated, indicating that the stopwatch influenced their performance. For the learning disabled children, however. the MFF latency scores in the two conditions were correlated. A significant difference between the two correlation coefficients indicated that the normal and learning disabled children responded in a different manner to the temporal cue. On the MFF error measure, the correlation between the scores obtained in the two conditions of test administration was significant for the normal children, but not for the learning disabled children. A significant difference between these correlation coefficients again indicated differential responding to the temporal cue by the two groups.

Kagan (1965) described reflection-impulsivity as the child’s tendency to display slow or fast response times in problem situations under conditions of uncertainty. He described the impulsive child as being restless, distractive, hyperactive, and emotionally uncontrolled. His Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFF) is the primary index of reflection-impulsivity, which he conceptualized as an individual disposition that has generality across a broad range of situations. Although the test yields two scores, a latency score and an error score, construct validity has only been demonstrated for the error measure (Block, Block, & Harrington, 1974). In studies of normal children correlations have been found between MFF latency scores and latency scores on a number of other tasks in Requests for reprints should be sent to Lorene C. Quay, Department of Early Childhood Development, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30303. 383

0022-0965/78/0262-0383$02.00/O

Copyright 0 1978by AcademicPress,Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

384

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ET AL.

which a timing device was used to measure response latency (Kagan, Pearson, & Welch, 1966; Katz, 1971). These correlations may well be a function of the presence of the timing device in both testing situations. In fact, the cognitive tempo of normal children, as measured by the MFF. may be influenced by an environmental cue. the stopwatch used in the testing situation to measure response latency. In contrast, children who are markedly more impulsive than normal may be unable to control the tempo with which they respond, regardless of the cues within the situation. Douglas (1974) indicated that problems with impulse control permeate and impair the functioning of children with a wide range of learning disabilities, regardless of the characteristics of the situation. Campbell, Douglas, and Morgenstern (1971) found that hyperactive learning disabled children were more impulsive on both the MFF error and the MFF latency measure than normal children. Others (Hallahan, Kauffman, & Ball, 1973; Quay & Weld, Note 1) have found learning disabled children to differ from normal children only on the MFF error measure. The purpose of this research was to ascertain whether normal and learning disabled children respond in the same manner (reflectively or impulsively) to the MFF test under two conditions of test administration: (1) a standard administration condition, which included a stopwatch, and (2) a tape-recorded administration (No-Stopwatch condition) for which latency scores were obtained by later timing responses from the tape recording. The hypothesis was that normal children are not in the same relative position in the two distributions, since their responses are influenced by their responsiveness to the stopwatch, but that learning disabled children are in the same relative position in the two distributions, since the stopwatch will not affect their performance. METHOD Fifteen white eight- and nine-year-old normal boys were randomly selected from the third and fourth grades of a suburban school. Sixteen white eight- and nine-year-old boys classified as learning disabled were randomly selected from a private school for learning disabled children. A counterbalanced design, in which children from each group were randomly assigned to one of four conditions was used. The conditions consisted of four combinations of the following procedures: (a) standard administration procedure on either the first administration or second administration of the MFF, and (b) first half of the MFF (six items) administered first or second half of the MFF (six items) administered first. The MFF was administered in two sessions, three days apart, by an experienced male examiner. In each condition standard instructions were given and the test booklet rested against a small tape recorder that it

NOTE

385

shielded from view. In the standard administration condition, as specified in the test directions, the examiner looked at the stopwatch when he said the last word of the instructions and stopped the watch when the child made his first guess. The child was instructed to say “this one” when he made his first guess. If the child simply pointed to the picture and omitted saying “this one,” the examiner said “that one.” Both latency and error scores were recorded. The No-Stopwatch condition differed from the standard condition only in that the stopwatch was not present and the tape recorder “stand” recorded each session. Errors were recorded at the time of the testing, so that scoring appeared the same in the two conditions. The recorder was on when each child entered the room, minimizing the likelihood that the children would notice the recording. Latency scores were later calculated by using a stopwatch to measure response time on the tape recordings. RESULTS

Means and standard deviations for MFF latency and MFF error scores for normal and learning disabled children are presented for the standard administration and No-Stopwatch conditions in Table 1. A 2 (standard administration-No-Stopwatch) x 2 (learning disabled-normal) multivariate analysis of variance, with MFF latency and MFF error scores as the dependent variables indicated that a significant difference occurred between learning disabled and normal children [F(1.58) = 8.76, p < .Ol], and that the difference between the standard administration and the NoStopwatch condition approached significance [F( 1,58) = 2.57, p < .081. The interaction was not significant. As recommended by Bonferroni (see Harris, 1975), separate univariate analyses were carried out for latency and error scores. A difference between learning disabled and normal children ocTABLE MEANS

AND STANDARD DEVIATION AND LEARNING DISABLED AND

I

MFF LATENCY AND BOYS UNDER STANDARD

FOR

NO-STOPWATCH

Standard Latency Error No-stopwatch Latency Error

Mean

FOR NORMAL

CONDITIONS

Normal Condition

ERROR SCORES ADMINISTRATION

Learning disabled SD

Mean

SD

81.00 5.60

43.05 2.74

72.53 8.81

49.20 3.54

103.70 4.06

65.53 2.76

115.81 7.87

83.80 4.25

386

QUAY

ET AL

cm-red on error scores [F( 158) = 16.45, p < .Ol] but not on latency scores. The difference between the two conditions of administration approached significance [F( 158) = 4.38, p -=c.04] for latency (this p value is inflated due to the prior multivariate analysis, and doubling it would provide a more accurate estimate of p). The difference between the two conditions of administration for error scores was not significant. The difference between means of the MFF latency scores obtained in the two conditions of administration, while interesting, does not indicate whether the children individually responded to the two conditions in a different manner. To investigate this question correlations were calculated between the scores obtained in the standard administration and the No-Stopwatch condition for both normal and learning disabled children. These correlation coefficients are presented in Table 2. For the normal children, the correlation between MFF latency scores obtained in the two conditions of administration was not significant (r = - .14), but for the learning disabled children, the correlation was significant (r = .56, p < .05). Figure 1 illustrates the regression lines for the normal and learning disabled groups. The correlation between MFF error scores obtained in the two conditions was significant for the normal children (Y = .53, p < .05), but not for the learning disabled children (r = . 10). The difference between these two correlation coefficients was significant (p < .Ol). Figure 2 illustrates the regression lines for the two groups. DISCUSSION

The absence of a significant correlation between MFF latency scores in the standard administration and the No-Stopwatch conditions for the normal children means that they may respond impulsively in one condition and reflectively in the other condition. Thus, reflection-impulsivity TABLE CORRELATION

COEFFICIENTS FOR MFF STANDARD ADMINISTRATION FOR NORMAL

AND

2

LATENCY AND MFF ERROR SCORES OBTAINED AND NO-STOPWATCH CONDITIONS LEARNING

DISABLED

CHILDREN

No-stopwatch Normal Latency Standard Latency Error Note.

Learning Error

Latency

p.44 .53”

-.34

administration

*p .05.

-.14 .09

,jfj”

disabled Error

-.23 .I0

IN

387

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FIG.

I. Regression

lines

I

I

I

I

I

I

I1

(STANDARD ADMINISTRATION)

for MFF

latency

scores

as measured by the MFF test is to some extent a function of the normal child’s response to the stopwatch. On the other hand, the significant correlation between MFF latency scores in the two conditions for the learning disabled children indicated that they, to a greater extent than l2 11 -

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LEARNING MSABLED

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M=F ERRORS (STANDARD ACMNLSTFiATiON)

FIG.

2. Regression

lines

for

MFF

error

scores.

QUAY

388

ET AL.

their normal counterparts, do not take their cues from the external demands of the situation, but are influenced by internal dispositional factors, as Kagan (1965) hypothesized for all children. In contrast to the MFF latency score correlations, the correlations between MFF error scores in the two conditions were significant for the normal children and nonsignificant for the learning disabled children. The nonsignificant correlation for the learning disabled children may be attributable to the high level of guessing, as indicated by their high error scores. The significant correlation for the normal children indicates that the external stimulus does not differentially affect the distribution of the error scores. This finding may result from the fact that the MFFerror score, as concluded by Block et al. (1974). has greater construct validity than the MFF latency score. On the other hand, the stopwatch may not affect error because it is not a cue which is directly related to accuracy. If the error measure is susceptible to outside influence, accuracy cues would be expected to have a greater effect on it than a time cue. REFERENCES Block.

J.. Block. J. H.. & Harrington. D. M. Some misgivings about the Matching Familiar Figures Test as a measure of reflection-impulsivity. Developmental Psy%ok~gy , 1974, 10, 611-632. Campbell. S. B.. Douglas. V. 1.. & Morgenstern. G. Cognitive styles in hyperactive children and the effect of methylphenidate. ./~~rtmtr/ 0.f Child P.s~c~ho/ogy und P.swhiutry. 1971, 12, 55-67. Douglas. V. Sustained attention and impulse control: Implications for the handicapped child. In C. E. Sherick (Ed.). !+‘~~c~l7o~og~ trnd the hondicupprd child. (Department of Health. Education and Welfare Publications No. (OE) 73-05000). Washington. DC: U. S. Government Printing Office. 1974. Hallahan, D. P.. Kauffman. J. M.. B Ball. D. W. Selective attention and the cognitive tempo of low achieving and high achieving sixth grade males. Perc~pfuu~ and Motor Skills. 1973. 36, 5799583. Harris, R. J. A primer ofmultivuriutr .vratisrics. New York: Academic Press. 1975. Kagan, J. Impulsive and reflective children: Significance of conceptual tempo. In J. Krunboltz (Ed.). Lrurnirtg und fhr rduc~utionul process. Chicago: Rand McNally. 1965. Kagan, J.. Pearson. L.. & Welch, L. The modificability of an impulse tempo. Joumul of Educ,utionul Psychology. 1966. 57, 359-365. Katz. J. M. Reflection-impulsivity and color-form sorting. Child Development. 1971. 42. 745-754.

REFERENCE

NOTE

I. Quay, L. C., & Weld. G. L. Se/e< rive attention tc~ truditory u)zd visuul stimuli in normul crrrd Irjtrrniny disrrhlrll c,hi/drc,o. Final Report to Bureau for the Education of the Handicapped. Office of Education, Department of Health. Education and Welfare. BEH Grant Number GO07507277, May 1977. RECEIVED:

June

7, 1977: REVISED:

January

6, 1978.

Responses of normal and learning disabled children as a function of the stopwatch in the Matching Familiar Figures Testing situation.

JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL CHILD 26, 383-388 (1978) PSYCHOLOGY NOTE Responses of Normal and Learning Disabled Children as a Function of the Stopwatc...
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