Robust interference effects were found which declined with age. Manipulating discriminability of the relevant stimulus dimension resulted in large changes in sorting time, but interference effects did not vary with baseline difficulty. These results were interpreted as strongly supporting both an absolute decrement model and a developmental trend…

Twenty-three autistic children and 23 nonautistic children completed an attention battery comprising continuous performance tests, a digit-cancellation task, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Tests, and two computerized tests of shifting attention. Children with autism could focus on a particular stimulus and sustain this focus and could shift their…

Significant, though moderate, correlations between some of the verbal creativity measures and the selective attention variables were found, though this relationship changed as a function of age and the type of creativity measured. (DLS)

Sustained and selective attention among 30 fourth- through sixth-graders with learning disabilities (LD) and 20 controls was compared. Results indicated that LD students are less able to narrow their attention and also have slower information-processing skills, despite similar ability between groups for sustaining attention and inhibiting…

Examined visual fixation in infants 6 months to 2 years old for fit with theory of attentional inertia. Found that fixations had lognormal distribution, heart rate decreased during a look, and heart rate returned to prestimulus levels immediately before look offset. Older children showed different looking patterns to two types of stimuli; younger…

Debate continues over the hypothesis that children with language or literacy difficulties have a genuine auditory processing deficit. Several recent studies have reported deficits in frequency discrimination (FD), but it is unclear whether these are genuine perceptual impairments or reflective of the comorbid attentional problems that exist in…

This study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of a relatively short-term program of relaxation training in producing changes in elementary students in terms of attention-related skills associated with reading tasks in the classroom. Evaluation of change was measured by change in experimental variables and subjective evaluations of change.…

Hagen's central-incidental learning task, the Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire (IAR), and the Nowicki-Strickland Scale (N-S) locus of control measures were used to examine selective attention and locus of control--two variables associated with motivation and learning--with 56 normal and learning disabled junior and senior high…

This study investigated student academic responding time as a function of time of day for 122 students (grades 2-4) with and without disabilities in 10 urban and suburban schools. Student academic responding time was higher when an academic activity was occurring, an active task was underway, and an individual rather than a group structure was…

An attempt was made to modify the attending, on-task behavior of hyperkinetic children in a naturalistic school setting. The boys were taught how to "pay attention." The procedures utilized were based on previous research findings regarding the performance of hyperkinetics on a vigilance monitoring task. (Author)

Two factors of predicted learning disorders were investigated: (1) inability to maintain appropriate classroom behavior (BEH), (2) perceptual discrimination deficit (PERC). Three groups of first-graders (BEH, PERC, normal control) were administered measures of impulse control, distractability, auditory discrimination, and visual discrimination.…

General intelligence may set structural feature limitations on three aspects of selective attention: direction, adjustability, and breadth. Data, theory, and methods bearing on this hypothesis were reviewed from the domain of visual discrimination learning. (Author/BW)

Attention acts as the mind's "gatekeeper" by regulating and prioritizing the stimuli processed by the central nervous system. It is essential for cognitive performance, memory, and behavior, and we know that even slight deficiencies in attention compromise learning. Basic neuroscience research further indicates that attention consists of (fairly)…

Vigilance performance of twenty fourth-grade retarded readers was compared with that of twenty normal readers matched for age, sex, grade, and intelligence. (Authors)

A conceptual framework of attention can be organized around three functions of attention: determining how much capacity is to be deployed (attention allocation), for how long (attention maintenance), and to which potential information sources (attention direction). Within this framework, several critical distinctions can be made between processes…