Sustained Attention in Hyperactive Children*

SUMMARY The ability of hyperactive children to maintain attention on three tasks was examined. One of the tasks, a Choice Reaction Time Task, measured attention for brief periods, while the other two measured sustained attention. Of the latter two, one was an experimenter‐paced task (the Continuous Performance Test) and the other a self‐paced task (the Serial Reaction Task). It was found that the hyperactive children were no different from their normal controls in their ability to direct their attention for brief periods. They were, however, significantly inferior to the controls in their ability to sustain attention, particularly on the experimenter‐paced task.