Matching of auditory-visual and temporal-spatial information by seven- and nine-year-old children

Techniques of presenting information temporally in the auditory and visual modalities and spatially in the visual modality were used to assess information processing in 7- and 9-year-old children. The results of the study were interpreted as contradictory to the view that modalities are specialized for the processing of distinct forms of information. Viewed developmentally with related literature, however, the study also suggests that some specialization of modalities may be found in the preschool years, with a school-age shift to nonspecialization.