The Effect of Stimulus Change on Attending Behavior in Normal Children and Children with Learning Disorders

Children defined as having learning disorders were compared with normally achieving children on an attention demanding task under the conditions of constant stimulation and stimulus change. It was found that the children with learning problems did not perform as well as the normal controls under the change condition, but did perform as well under the constant stimulus condition. The data suggest that children with learning disorders are more influenced by stimulus change than are normally achieving children.