TITLE:
Performance of Children and Adolescents from a School of the City of Sogamoso on a Decision-Making Test
AUTHORS:
Patricia Bernal, Johanna Montaña, Rocio Acosta, Yonathan Rojas
KEYWORDS:
Decision-Making, Children and Adolescents, Somatic Marker, Hungry Donkey Task
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Pediatrics,
Vol.5 No.4,
December
30,
2015
ABSTRACT: The aim of this study was to describe the
performance on a decision-making task of children and adolescents (aged 7 - 17
years) from a school in the city of Sogamoso. This non-experimental descriptive,
cross-sectional study was conducted by means of a non probability sampling of
type cases. The sample consisted of 325 subjects, to whom the Hungry Donkey
Task in its version adapted for Colombia was applied. Through descriptive
statistics, the test performance trend was established, finding that
participants aged 7 to 11 years had better performance than adolescents 12 to
14 years old, which partially supports the hypothesis of decision-making
development in J shape. Subjects aged 15 to 17 years had the most
disadvantageous performance, which may indicate immaturity and slow development
of prefrontal areas and the influence of the trend towards risk-taking,
characteristic of this age range.