A Comparison of Special Education Students with Regular Students Using Audio and Visual Stimuli

Abstract

The problem. The purpose of this study was to compare the reaction times of three selected junior high school populations: learning disabled, regular, and mildly mentally disabled to a simple audio and visual stimuli. Procedure. The Automatic Performance Analyzer was used to test the simple reaction times of the fifty-four students. Each person was given ten individual trials for measurement of his/her reaction time to a simple stimuli. Each students was allowed five trials with the audio stimuli and five trials with the visual stimuli. During each trial, the length of time from activation of the stimuli to the presentation of the stimuli was varied. All reaction time scores were recorded to the nearest one-one hundredth of a second. Findings. Reaction time to an audio and/or a visual stimuli may vary from student to student; however, such similarity or variance is neither dependent upon nor an operation of the classification of that student at the junior high school level as either learning disabled, regular, or mildly mentally retarded. It may be further stated that a student's membership in any of these groups cannot be accurately predicted by that student's reaction time score(s). Conclusions. Four conclusions can be made as a direct result of this investigation. First, no one group (L.D., Reg., and M.D.) showed significantly higher or lower reaction time scores to an audio or visual stimuli. Second, group placement (L.D., Reg., and M.D.) had no significant impact on an individual's reaction time scores to an audio or visual stimuli. Third, no accurate predictions with respect to placement (L.D., Reg., and M.D.) can be made based upon either of his/her reaction time scores to an audio and/or visual stimuli. Fourth, if a person scored slowly, moderately, or rapidly to an audio stimuli, he/she also scored slowly, moderately, or rapidly to a visual stimuli. Recommendations. Based on the findings in this investigation, it is recommended that further research be conducted. A more complex audio and visual stimuli should be used with a wider population base.