Abstract
The presence of a relationship between the ingestion of artificial food colours and a change in the frequency and/or duration of selected behaviours that are representative of the hyperactive behaviour syndrome was experimentally investigated. Two six-year-old boys referred to the psychological service as manifesting disruptive behavioural excesses, participated in the project. The experimental design was a variation of the ABAB design with double-blind conditions. Observations were made in the school setting by trained observers, on “Out of Seat”, “On Task” and “Physically Aggressive” behaviours. In the home parents collected data on “Verbal Refusal”, “Physical Aggression” , “Duration of Sleep” and “Latency of Falling Asleep”. The results did not indicate any consistent change in the observed behaviours that could be attributed to the removal of natural salicylates and artificial food colours from the diet, nor any corresponding change when tartrazine was introduced during the challenge phases. The results also fail to show a close relationship between teachers and parents observations of related behaviour measures.