Relationships between Environmental Distractions and Task Performance of

Thirteen hyperactive children and 11 normal children, all boys who were functioning at the second-grade level, were individually given four representative academic tasks in selected distracting environments during four one-hour testing sessions. Performance was measured by ’time-off ’ task, "time-to-complete " task, and number correct "score. " Multivariate analyses of variance were used to determine whether hyperactive children were more distractible than normal children who were also distractible under similar conditions. The results clearly indicated that on a simple picture-completion task, hyperactive and normal subjects were equally dis-tractible. Hyperactive children were not helped more than normal children by the presence of an adult except on a complex arithmetic task; their decrease in time-of