SUMMARYOveractive and distractible (hyperactives), normoactive and distractible, and normoactive and attentive (controls) children were administered a high‐speed visual search task. The display load was manipulated and all subjects were administered the task in three instruction conditions: speed, ‘normal’ and accuracy. Speed‐accuracy trade‐off curves indicated that the controls and distractibles conformed to the fast guess model, which relates speed and accuracy. Hyperactives partially conformed to this model. It is concluded that a structuralprocessdeficit is not indicated by these data in hyperactivity. Rather, the evidence suggests that a resourcestrategydefect may be characteristic of hype