Tic-Tac-Toe performance as a function of maturational level of retarded adolescents and nonretarded children

Two groups of retarded adolescents, differing from each other primarily in IQ (and mental age), were compared with two groups of nonretarded children, differing from each other in chronological age (and mental age), on a modified tic-tac-toe game. The mental ages of the retarded and nonretarded groups were approximately the same. It was found that the slope of performance improvement with increasing maturational level was the same for both subject groups, but the performance of the retarded adolescents was approximately 1.5 years behind mental age expectations, as derived from the performance levels of the normal children. These findings support previous suggestions of a major retardate deficit in tasks requiring logical foresight.