An Examination of Developmental Trajectories for Attention Skills in Children

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the development of attention skills through middle childhood and to document developmental trajectories associated with tasks of increasing attentional demands. The sample comprised 57 children (aged 5–12 years) who were divided, according to age, into three groups. Performance differences between the groups were compared on two measures, each including four subtests of increasing complexity and tapping both speed and accuracy: CogState, a computerised measure, and The Contingency Naming Test, a paper-and-pencil test. We predicted that there would be: (1) improvements in performance with increasing age, (2) deceases in performance with increasing task complexity and (3) parallel increments in performance on computer-based and paper-and-pencil measures. The results indicated that there were rapid improvements in performance on both computer-based and paper-and-pencil measures between the ages of 5 and 8 years indicated by changes in both response speed and response accuracy. In contrast, more moderate improvements were identified between the ages of 9 to 12 years and occurred mainly in the domain of speed.