[Personality traits and hyperactive behavior]

The hyperactive child has traditionally been considered impulsive rather out of self-control, anxious, problematic as regards his/her interpersonal relationships, and highlystrung. In this paper, we aim to prove the existence of these traits by analyzing them from a psychometric perspective, and starting from Cattell's theory of traits. We have worked with a sample of 130 hyperactive children and 79 control individuals, aged six to ten, who were diagnosed according to DSM III criteria. We have used the CPQ and ESPQ tests. The data were submitted to a contrast of differences. The results agree with the hypothesis proposed.