PREFERENCES IN ATTENTION TO VISUAL CUES IN DOWN SYNDROME AND NORMAL CHILDREN

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Abstract
Children (34) were selected who had reached a criterion on a matching task. Down''s syndrome children (17) were matched on M.A. (mental age) with 17 normal children (M.A. 6.0 .times. 0.5); there were 9 females and 6 males in each group. All subjects were tested on 2 matching tasks, 1 involving increasing density of pattern and the other of increasing size and density of pattern. The tests were repeated with the introduction of a short-term memory variable. Both groups had a preferred dimension for size over pattern. When size and pattern were combined, the Down''s syndrome group were confused by the 2 dimensions, showing preference for 1 or the other. The performance of the Down''s syndrome group was significantly weaker than the normal group, who were able to accommodate the imposition of patterns on size. In contrast to the Down''s syndrome group, attention to 2 dimensions helped to improve performance in the weaker dimension.