TY - JOUR
T1 - Attentional focus of students with hyperactivity during a word-search task
AU - Zentall, Sydney S.
AU - Hall, Arlene M.
AU - Lee, David L.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by the Office of Special Education Programs of the U.S. Department of Education, grant H029D20017 to the first author. This article does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the funding agency. The research was conducted in cooperation with Boston Middle School, LaPorte, Indiana. We greatly appreciate the assistance with data collection provided by the principal, Faye Iorio, and by Wendy Low.
PY - 1998
Y1 - 1998
N2 - Mirrors have been used to focus attention to aspects of the self (e.g., to known strategies, standards). We hypothesized that this could be important for students with hyperactivity/inattention, who typically direct attention outward to external novelty. In this study, we administered a partially solvable word puzzle to 43 middle school students, with and without hyperactivity/inattention, in the presence and absence of a mirror, counterbalanced for condition and form order. Differences between students with hyperactivity/inattention and comparisons in accuracy were found only in the no mirror condition. Furthermore, the beneficial effect of the mirror for children with hyperactivity/inattention was most pronounced for those who looked at the mirror. Findings were interpreted in terms of their potential to remedy the production deficits of these children.
AB - Mirrors have been used to focus attention to aspects of the self (e.g., to known strategies, standards). We hypothesized that this could be important for students with hyperactivity/inattention, who typically direct attention outward to external novelty. In this study, we administered a partially solvable word puzzle to 43 middle school students, with and without hyperactivity/inattention, in the presence and absence of a mirror, counterbalanced for condition and form order. Differences between students with hyperactivity/inattention and comparisons in accuracy were found only in the no mirror condition. Furthermore, the beneficial effect of the mirror for children with hyperactivity/inattention was most pronounced for those who looked at the mirror. Findings were interpreted in terms of their potential to remedy the production deficits of these children.
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U2 - 10.1023/A:1021947705373
DO - 10.1023/A:1021947705373
M3 - Article
C2 - 9826292
AN - SCOPUS:0031733776
SN - 0091-0627
VL - 26
SP - 335
EP - 343
JO - Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology
JF - Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology
IS - 5
ER -