Development and evaluation of an attentional test for head injured children--1. Information processing capacity in a normal sample.

The Children's Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (CHIPASAT) was developed to assess the capacity and rate of information processing in children. This basic aspect of attention underlies many abilities, and is impaired following head injury in adults. Similar impairment may occur in children after head injury or other CNS dysfunction. A sample (N = 315) of normal school children was assessed with the CHIPASAT to establish normative data, and relationships between age, arithmetic ability, general intellectual (g) ability and information processing capacity. The results suggest that the age and, to a lesser extent, the arithmetic ability of a child have a significant influence on information processing capacity. The children's general intellectual ability (g) and sex were unrelated to CHIPASAT performance.