Visual search performance was examined in three groups of children 7 to 12 years of age and in young adults. Colour and orientation feature searches and a conjunction search were conducted. Reaction time (RT) showed expected improvements in processing speed with age. Comparisons of RTs on target-present and target-absent trials were consistent with parallel search on the two feature conditions and with serial search in the conjunction condition. The RT results indicated searches for feature and conjunctions were treated similarly for children and adults. However, the youngest children missed more targets at the largest array sizes, most strikingly in conjunction search. Based on an analysis of speed/accuracy trade-offs, we suggest that low targetdistractor discriminability leads to an undersampling of array elements, and is responsible for the high number of misses in the youngest children.

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Child abuse has been defined in the literature to include any act of commission or omission that endangers or impairs a child's physical or emotional health and development. It may be evidenced by an injury or series of injuries appearing to be non-accidental in nature and which cannot reasonably be explained. The most frequently recognized forms of child abuse are physical abuse (including neglect or lack of adequate supervision) emotional abuse or deprivation and sexual abuse?All children, unfortunately, are candidates to experience sexual abuse. This includes children who were born with or have acquired a disability. They may be living in foster homes or institutions or with their families.Sexual abuse can consist of visual, physical or verbal aggression which can be perceived as unwanted sexual activity. This is particularly true about the victim who is less than the age of consent. Sexual assault or abuse includes any form of unwanted sexual touching, nonconsensual sexual intercourse, other ongoing sexual exploitation, or perhaps isolated incidences of physical harassment which is experienced as sexual intent.The Illusion Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota defines sexual abuse as occurring when a person is "manipulated, tricked or forced into touch or sexual contact." A helpful deft-

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