Benton visual form discrimination test in healthy children: normative data and qualitative analysis

The attention evaluation may be considered a crucial phase in neuropsychological assessment. It must take into account the systemic nature of the attentional functions and must use different reliable tests in relation to the neurological and attentional problems to be addressed. The aim of the study was to offer the clinician an effective tool for attention assessment and provide the normative data and performance analysis on the Benton Visual Form Discrimination Test on an Italian sample (number 323) of healthy school children, from ages 5 to 11. Performance on Visual Form Discrimination Test (VFDT) significantly increased with growing age. Performances were significantly different when the test was divided into four sets. All groups, especially the younger ones, showed some difficulty in maintenance and sustained attention. The correct answers were significantly more numerous when they were placed at the top quadrants. This effect was more marked in the younger groups. Sex was never a significantly influencing performance. Our data seem to indicate that the higher attentional frontoparietal network becomes more functionally organized around 9–10 years. VFDT appears as a discriminative task. In clinical practice, our normative data can be used both on complex visual attention skill evaluation in children and on the ability to maintain visual attention in time.