General Features of Temperament

photo by: David Coffee

By L.G. Cohen|L.J. Spenciner

Pearson Allyn Bacon Prentice Hall

The general features of temperament (Thomas & Chess, 1977; Thomas, Chess, & Birch, 1970) include:

Rhythmicity: The regularity of the student’s activity patterns, such as eating, playing, studying, bladder, and bowel functions.
Mood: The student’s overall demeanor, such as happy or sad, friendly or unfriendly.
Activity: The frequency of movement.
Adaptability: The ability of the student to adapt to new situations.
Distractibility: The ease with which the student is interrupted from an activity.
Persistence: The student’s ability to attend to or persist in an activity.
Threshold: The student’s sensitivity to stimuli and changes in the environment, such as noise or temperature.
Intensity: The student’s magnitude of response to a specific stimulus, such as the tendency to smile or laugh when amused or to scream or whimper when hurt.
Approach: The student’s attraction or withdrawal to novel stimuli and situations.

Assessment of Children & Youth with Special Needs
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Excerpt from Assessment of Children & Youth with Special Needs, by L.G. Cohen, L.J. Spenciner, 2007 edition, p. 317.

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