50 hearing and 50 deaf children of comparable intelligence were given the Archimedes spiral aftereffect and the Bender-Gestalt tests. Controls performed significantly better than the deaf group on both tests. Children who made fewer errors on the Bender tended to perceive the negative spiral aftereffect more often, this tendency being more marked in the deaf group. Older hearing children performed better on both tests and brighter hearing children perceived the negative aftereffect more often, but this tendency was not evident with deaf children. Results suggest that the two tests may be measuring different cerebral functioning but the use of both should prove a valuable aid in the detection of visual-perceptual problems in deaf children.
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