To ascertain whether impulsive responding in behavior disordered adolescents is amenable to change, 15-year-old normal and "acting-out" behavior disordered adolescents participated in an experiment designed to alter Kagan's Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFF) scores through a modeling psychoeducational procedure. No significant…

This study examines two questions: (1) are the natural environmental contingencies under which reflective and impulsive children operate different? and (2) if so, which, if any of these differences, predict the nature of behavior change? Forty impulsive and reflective children and their mothers were observed while solving discrimination problems…

Evaluated construct validity of Kagan's Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFF). None of the scoring procedures differentiated between behavior-disordered and normal boys. Failure of the error measures to designate a greater frequency of behavior-disordered boys as impulsive than are their normal peers raised questions about validity of the MFF.…

To evaluate the construct validity of J. Kagan's Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFF), both the latency and error scores of 30 9- to 15-year-old normal and "acting-out" behavior-disordered children were compared. (Author/SBH)

This study investigated whether the stimulant methylphenidate (Ritalin) would differentially affect performance on a test of cognitive style by hyperactive children. Subjects were 55 children, (ages 7 to 15) referred to the Learning Clinic at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada for hyperactivity and/or learning problems. A paired…