SOFT NEUROLOGICAL SIGNS IN CHILDREN - A NORMATIVE STUDY

A soft neurological signs (SNS) test battery (the Quick Neurological S creening Test; Mutti, Sterling, & Spalding, 1978) was individually adm inistered to 233 normal children, ages 5 to 12 years. The participants ' characteristics were balanced according to (a) age (5-6 years, 7-8 y ears, 9-10 years, and 11-12 years:); (b) socioeconomic status (SES; hi gh and low); and (c) gender (boys and girls), yielding a 4 x 2 x 2 ana lysis of variance design with an average of 15 participants in each ce ll. In addition, an Academic Achievement Questionnaire was presented t o the children's teachers. Normative data are presented. It was observ ed that (a) SNS decreased in frequency with age; (b) there were import ant individual differences in their frequency; (c) a significantly hig her frequency of SNS was present in low-SES than in high-SES children, although these differences tended to decrease with age and schooling; (d) correlations between SNS and academic performance were in general low, but at least for some of these correlations, statistically signi ficant; and (e) some SNS may be more informative about nervous system maturation level than others.