In the investigation of the types of higher nervous activity in children, carried out by means of the complex method, we found in a group of children from seven to eight years of age besides the common types of the higher nervous activity also some special characteristics. which we submitted to an analysis.
In several (five) children, and with particular expressiveness in a boy. Zdeněk B.. we found inertness of the concentration of the Inhibitory process. We assume that the concentration of nervous processes is apparently a peculiar feature of the cerebral cortex activity of children, which may become one of independent typological criteria.
In Helena B., a girl of eight, we ascertained disharmony in the co-operation between the first and the second signalling system. On the level of the first signalling system in particular (as the A. G. Ivanov-Smolenski method of grasping conditioned reflexes showed) both the basic nervous processes of the said girl were characterised by a satisfactory strength and mobility, while in forming associations on the level of the second signalling system with the application of the association experiment method, inertness and weakness of the excitation process were manifest.
By analysing the personal characteristics of a girl, Milada P., we arrived at the conclusion that complex relations arise between acquired, inborn, and developing properties of children. Milada P. was characterised by inadequate solidity and steadiness of the inhibitory process; this particular quality of her inhibition, apparently conditioned by upbringing, proved to be very resistent (after two years’ time we did not observe hereany substantial changes). On the other hand we found that the above-mentioned characteristic traits of Zdeněk B. and Helena B.. which seem to have a typological basis, changed^ substantially in two years’ time.