Delinquents and the Tapping Test

This study provided Tapping Test norms for young legal offenders by measuring 54 Anglo male probationers (35 juveniles, 19 adults) in Study I, and 127 probationers aged 12-17 within eight sex/age/ethnicity subgroups in Study II. The Tapping Test, a measure of fine-motor speed, forms part of the Halstead-Reitan battery for neuropsychodiagnosis. Study I results suggest that tapping speed related to age for juvenile male delinquents, p less than .01; for adults, speed relates to IQ, p less than .05. Study II results suggest that Anglo females--but not non-Anglo females-- tap slower than males, p less than .01. The results were only paritally consistent with those of prior studies. Future researchers may wish to: (a) refine norms by appropriate adjustments for age and IQ; (b) investigate why Anglo female delinquents were especially slow on the Tapping Test; and (c) evaluate to what extent false positives may be provoked on this test by depression rather than organicity.