The Stroop Test is a psychological tool which is often used to assess attention problems.
Children with dyslexia often have accompanying problems with concentration and attention .In fact,researchers suggest that at least 40% of children with dyslexia also have ADD/ADHD.
The”Stroop Effect" is named after J. Ridley Stroop who discovered this in the 1930’s.
The test involves identifying colours from a list of words which are displayed in a colour ink different from the colour it actually names.
Eg GREEN ( the word green is printed or displayed in red ink).
You would give the answer ‘red ‘.
The test involves focusing on one particular feature of a task ie identifying the colour of the word, while ignoring other information ( ie reading the word ).This makes it a hard exercise to do and involves a lot of concentration.If GREEN was written in green ink it would make it a lot easier to give the correct answer.
Animal Stroop : If children are younger and can’t read then they are given animal pictures to look at. Pictures are used where the head of the animal has been swapped with another animal. The child is asked to give the name for the “body” of the animal
The Neuroscience for Kids site has mini stroop test flash cards which you could print out and test yourself or your child.
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/words.html
http://www.adhd.org.nz/stroop1.html
The One Show on BBC talked about the Stroop Test :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theoneshow/onepassions/2009/02/body-tricks-stroop-test.html
For more information about animal stroop look at the Open University site
http://www.open2.net/healtheducation/family_childdevelopment/2005/animalstroop.html
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1 comment:
I tried a similar color test that was timed on screen for about 10 seconds each combination and I found it amazingly difficult to complete accurately until I tried to test several times.
I would be interested in how it affects dyslexics as I found my major problem was forcing myself to read the color rather than the word. I would think that dyslexics might find it easier to ignore reading the word because of their difficulties.
I had several people who didn't have attention problems try the particular color test that I saw and all had difficulty completing the task correctly on the first or even second time.
My niche is visual dyslexia where people actually have trouble seeing the words which I believe might lead them it have an easier time identifying the color of the word rather than reading the word.
I'm familiar that with the idea that many dyslexic are also considered to have ADHD but wonder if the diagnosis of having both may not be attributed to in part because of different difficulties that give similar results on tests.
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