[Diagnosis of mental retardation in children by the reaction time recording method]

The paper deals with the use computer-aided recording the time of visual and motor responses to estimate the severity of mental retardation (MR) in children. It presents standard temporary indices of simple and two differential responses and data on children with MR, obtained by an original computer procedure. In mentally retarded children, the time of responses has been shown to significantly differ from the standard values; the children make more mistakes in differentiation. The children with MR of cerebral organic genesis were found to fall behind in forming differential responses to a greater extent whereas those with MR of polygenic etiology did in forming both simple and differential responses equally.