NEUROBEHAVIORAL EVALUATION SYSTEM (NES) - COMPARATIVE PERFORMANCE OF 2ND, 4TH, AND 8TH-GRADE CZECH CHILDREN

The Neurobehavioral Evaluation System was designed for field studies o f workers, but many NES tests can be performed satisfactorily by child ren as young as 7 or 8 years old and a few tests, such as simple react ion time, can be performed by preschool children. However, little comp arative data from children of different ages or grade levels are avail able. Studies of school children in the Czech Republic indicate that 2 nd-grade children could perform the following NES tests satisfactorily : Finger Tapping, Visual Digit Span, Continuous Performance, Symbol-Di git Substitution, Pattern Comparison, and simpler conditions of Switch ing Attention. Comparative scores of boys and girls from the 2nd, 4th, and 8th grades and power analyses to estimate appropriate sample size were presented. Performance varied systematically with grade level an d gender. Larger samples were needed with younger children to achieve comparable levels of statistical power. Gender comparisons indicated t hat boys responded faster, but made more errors than girls.