This study examines the relation between 3-year-old children's (N = 280) symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, and aggression and their cognitive, motor, and preacademic skills. When the authors controlled for other types of attention and behavior problems, maternal ratings of hyperactivity and teacher ratings of inattention were uniquely and…

The neuropathological correlates of suicide in older persons have received little research attention. Our recent study of elderly suicide victims from an Australian forensic medicine department (n = 143), unlike a previous case-control study, did not find an increased prevalence of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in older persons who committed suicide…

This study addressed three major questions pertaining to habituation of visual attention in infants: (1) does habituation occur gradually? (2) how do fast and slow habituators compare in their response to discrepancy? and (3) does intervening stimulation produce interference with infants' visual recognition memory? The subjects were 36 17-week-old…

Two experiments are reported in which cardiac habituation of the orienting response to pure tone stimuli was studied in well-nourished and malnourished male Guatemalan infants. Results indicated a fundamental attentional deficit in the malnourished group. (GO)

Two subjects read short stories while writing lists of words at dictation. After weeks of practice, they were able to write words, discover relations among dictated words, and categorize words for meaning while reading for comprehension at normal speed. These subjects' performance is not consistent with the notion that there are fixed limits to…

Findings of this study indicate that children can learn to control their attending or orienting responses in the face of some distracting stimuli by the age of 6 1/2 to 7 1/2 years. This study was adapted from a dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of Yale University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree.…

Reprints from: Curtis W. McIntyre, Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203.

A critique of an article which identified characteristics of children who watch television. (BD)

Although school break times have been justified by children's need to release surplus energy, research findings show little support for this theory. Restlessness and inattentiveness may be attributable to boredom. Regular breaks can be justified for other reasons. (SK)

Considers the effects of electronic media on the developing brains of children. Topics include the attentional demands of electronic media; commercial sponsorship; brain development, including memory systems and response systems; and what a developing mind can bring to the electronic media. (LRW)

Prospectively followed 100 hyperactive children and 60 controls over 8 years into adolescence. At followup, hyperactive children demonstrated impaired academic achievement; impaired attention and impulse control; and greater off-task, restless, and vocal behavior during an academic task compared with controls. Concluded that hyperactive children…

Analyzed the protocols of 52 clinic-referred children who were administered the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC) as well as version of the Continuous Performance Test (CPT), a laboratory measure of attention. Results demonstrated significant interrelationships among K-ABC and CPT scores. (Author/ABL)

Phillips, Wellman, and Spelke (2002) provided experimental evidence indicating that by the age of 12 months infants use information about an adult's gaze-direction and emotional expression to predict action. We investigate the generality of this ability, using Phillips et al.'s paradigm across different referential gestures. If infants have a rich…

Neurobiological models propose an evolutionary, vertical-integrative perspective on emotion and behavior regulation, which postulates that regulatory functions are processed along three core brain systems: the brainstem, limbic, and cortical systems. To date, few developmental studies applied these models to research on prenatal and perinatal…