Date of Award

1981

Publication Type

Doctoral Thesis

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Department

Psychology

Keywords

Psychology, Clinical.

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Abstract

The present investigation examined whether children categorized as fast responders on a visual discrimination task, the Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT; Kagan, Rosman, Day, Albert, & Phillips, 1964), show significant differences in various aspects of reading performance (i.e., speed, comprehension, accuracy, self-corrections) from children categorized as slow responders. Hypotheses were formulated from the research of Bakker (1973). Twenty male and twenty female children were selected from regular grades two, four, and six if their mean reaction time on the MFFT fell either above or below .5 S.D. of the means contained in the MFFT normative data (Salkind, 1978). Reading performance was assessed by the WRAT-'78, Durrell, and Slingerland measures. The covariate of intelligence was assessed by verbal and nonverbal subtests of the WISC. The results of the 2 x 2 x 3 (MFFT Speed x Sex x Grade) MANOVA design (N = 120, n = 10 per cell) indicated that only main effects for sex and grade were significant (p < .05) for the overall dependent reading measures. A significant interaction effect for MFFT speed and sex allowed for the study of the simple effect for MFFT speed. The results of the ANCOVAs and further analyses supported the hypotheses that fast responders make more reading addition errors and reading omission errors than slow responders and that fast responders do not differ from slow responders in reading comprehension and word recognition proficiency scores. Differences in reading speed scores obtained from fast and slow responders were not supported. A study of developmental and sex differences indicated that: significant differences in reading performance between fast and slow responders were found only for the boys; where significant differences occurred, the boys whether fast or slow responders always obtained poorer reading scores than the girls; significant differences between fast boys, fast girls, slow boys, and slow girls were found mostly at the grade four level; fast responders make more addition errors than slow responders at grades four and six and more omission errors at grade six. The results were discussed within a neuropsychological perspective (Bakker, 1973) with reference made to sex differences and to the developmental nature of reading behaviour. Previous research findings on the MFFT were discussed in light of the present findings.Dept. of Psychology. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1981 .M253. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-10, Section: B, page: 4198. Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1981.

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