Effects of Various Stimuli on Activity Level and Learning by High- and Low-Active Retarded Children

Abstract

Abstract Increased attention has recently been directed toward research on motor activity levels of mentally retarded children. Very high rates, as well as very low rates, are observed more frequently in mentally retarded populations than in nonretarded populations. The effects on activity levels of external stimuli, such as noise and light, have created interest in researchers for some time. Sixty-nine retarded children were classified according to activity rates and presented two learning tasks under four conditions: (a) quiet unstimulated; (b) noise and light stimuli; (c) pretest exercise; (d) pretest exercise, noise and light stimuli. Analysis indicated that the lower the intelligence the higher the activity level. High-active subjects had a decrease in learning performance in condition b and condition d. Low-active subjects remained low-active for all conditions and high-active subjects remained high-active for all conditions. Lower learning performance was observed for high-active subjects over all ...