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Attentional Differences between Groups of Preschool Children Differentiated by Teacher Ratings of Attention and Hyperactivity

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Title: Attentional Differences between Groups of Preschool Children Differentiated by Teacher Ratings of Attention and Hyperactivity
Language: English
Authors: Wilding, John, Burke, Kate
Source: British Journal of Developmental Psychology. Jun 2006 24(2):283-291.
Availability: British Psychological Society. St Andrews House, 48 Princess Road East, Leicester, LE1 7DR, UK. Tel: +44-116-254-9568; Fax: +44-116-227-1314; e-mail: enquiry@bps.org.uk; Web site: http://www.bpsjournals.co.uk
Peer Reviewed: Y
Physical Description: PDF
Page Count: 9
Publication Date: 2006
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Descriptors: Inhibition, Hyperactivity, Preschool Children, Attention Span, Attention Deficit Disorders, Visual Perception, Visual Stimuli, Error Patterns, Developmental Psychology
DOI: 10.1348/026151005X36029
ISSN: 0261-510X
Abstract: This study aimed to extend earlier work (Wilding, Munir, & Cornish, 2001; Wilding, 2003) which showed that children (aged 6-15) who were rated by their teachers as having poor attentional ability made more errors on a visual search task than children rated as having good attentional ability. The present study used a simpler version of the search task which had previously been used to study attention in children with Fragile X syndrome (Scerif, Cornish, Wilding, Driver, & Karmiloff-Smith, 2004) and studied performance in normal children from a younger age group. Children aged 3 and 4 were rated by teachers for attention and hyperactivity. Regression analyses, with verbal mental age (VMA), chronological age (CA), and attention rating as independent variables, found that children with higher VMA made fewer false alarms in visual searches, as did children given a better attention rating. However, none of the independent variables was related to time or distance travelled for correct responses. The relation between attention rating and error rate was non-linear, with the error rate increasing once the attention rating fell below the mean. The results are discussed in relation to explanations of poor attention in terms of weak inhibition.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2011
Accession Number: EJ941037
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0021318905;99e01jun.06;2019May29.11:49;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0021318905-1">Attentional differences between groups of preschool children differentiated by teacher ratings of attention and hyperactivity. </title> <p>This study aimed to extend earlier work (Wilding, Munir, & Cornish, 2001; Wilding, 2003) which showed that children (aged 6–15) who were rated by their teachers as having poor attentional ability made more errors on a visual search task than children rated as having good attentional ability. The present study used a simpler version of the search task which had previously been used to study attention in children with Fragile X syndrome (Scerif, Cornish, Wilding, Driver, & Karmiloff‐Smith, 2004) and studied performance in normal children from a younger age group. Children aged 3 and 4 were rated by teachers for attention and hyperactivity. Regression analyses, with verbal mental age (VMA), chronological age (CA), and attention rating as independent variables, found that children with higher VMA made fewer false alarms in visual searches, as did children given a better attention rating. However, none of the independent variables was related to time or distance travelled for correct responses. The relation between attention rating and error rate was non‐linear, with the error rate increasing once the attention rating fell below the mean. The results are discussed in relation to explanations of poor attention in terms of weak inhibition.</p> <p>A vast literature exists attempting to identify the nature of the cognitive impairments associated with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; see, e.g. a review by [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref1">17</reflink>]). As yet no theoretical consensus has evolved, although there is a developing viewpoint that the impairment is likely to involve some aspects of executive function involving control of attention, rather than some more specific attention process such as selection, maintenance, or division of attention (e.g. [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref2">11</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref3">3</reflink>]). Other suggested explanations of ADHD have been in terms of delay aversion ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref4">14</reflink>]) and an inefficient arousal system ([<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref5">17</reflink>]).</p> <p>A variety of tasks have been employed in attempts to identify the precise cognitive weaknesses associated with the disorder. In many cases performance has been found to be inferior in ADHD groups, but it is difficult to pinpoint the precise variables associated with this weakness and consequently there is no agreed test battery to assist diagnosis. Some investigators claim that there is no weakness of selective attention apparent in this condition, basing this conclusion on the absence of any impairment in speed of executing visual search tasks ([<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref6">8</reflink>]). However the search tasks on which this conclusion depended measured only speed of search, and some other studies using more detailed measures have suggested that this conclusion may need to be modified.</p> <p>[<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref7">20</reflink>] and [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref8">18</reflink>] have employed a computerised visual search task to discriminate children (aged 6–15 years) who were rated by teachers as having poor attentional ability from those who had good attentional ability. Such ratings are obviously not equivalent to a formal diagnosis of ADHD, although children receiving the worst ratings may resemble formally diagnosed children in many respects. Moreover, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref9">5</reflink>] and [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref10">7</reflink>] showed that heritability was similar when considering extreme cases of ADHD or individual variation in the associated behaviour in the general population, suggesting that diagnosed cases represent the tail of a continuous trait in the normal population.</p> <p>[<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref11">20</reflink>] and [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref12">18</reflink>] showed that their two groups did not differ in speed when the contribution of errors to total time had been removed (in agreement with the finding of [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref13">8</reflink>], with a diagnosed ADHD sample) but the two groups did differ reliably in the number of errors made in more difficult variations of the task, which required alternation between two targets or discrimination of targets from very similar foils. The poor attention group showed an increase in all types of error when the task was made more difficult, and not simply more errors of a type specific to the methods of varying difficulty (failures to switch between targets or false alarms to the similar foils). Hence [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref14">18</reflink>] concluded that these children had a general problem in handling difficult versions of the task rather than specific weaknesses in switching attention and discrimination. It also appears from these results that in this task accuracy provided a more sensitive reflection of attention ratings than did speed.</p> <p>The same tasks were also used to investigate attention problems in Fragile‐X syndrome (FXS; [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref15">10</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref16">19</reflink>]). FXS children also produced more errors than controls, but the majority of these were repeated responses to the same target after a successful response (or after an error) rather than confusions of shape or colour which were the predominant errors made by the control group. The authors suggested that the repetition errors might reflect weakness of one type of inhibitory control. [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref17">3</reflink>] has suggested inhibitory weakness as an overall explanation for ADHD, but the finding that different types of errors predominate in ADHD and FXS suggests that more detailed analysis of the relevant mechanisms will be needed to explain differences in attention impairment in these different groups.</p> <p>[<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref18">12</reflink>] used a simpler form of the search task to investigate typically and atypically developing toddlers, with larger and fewer targets and with responses made via a touch screen rather than a computer mouse. A significant improvement was observed in 3‐year‐olds compared with 2‐year‐olds in speed of search on correct responses (after basic speed, measured in a similar task without distractors, had been eliminated), efficiency of search (as shown by the mean distance travelled from the previous response to a located target), and a reduction in the number of non‐targets touched. Salience of the target (due to discriminability of targets and foils, and the number of foils) affected speed and distance moved to hits. Furthermore, the study showed that neither children with FXS nor children with Williams syndrome (WS) showed any differences in speed and distance travelled compared with mental age matched controls, but both these groups produced more errors than the control group and the nature of these errors differed from each other and from the controls. FXS children tended to perseverate on previously located targets, as in the study described above, but WS children tended to confuse different sized distractors with the targets. This study therefore showed the feasibility of using the simplified version of the search task with preschool age children and further demonstrated the potential of the error measures from this task for clarifying differences between different groups in the nature of such weaknesses.</p> <p>However, as yet, the simpler version of the task has not been used with normally developing children in the younger age range to compare children rated as having good attention and those rated as having poor attention. Such a study is needed in order to determine whether the task discriminates these groups as effectively as the similar task used with older children. The ability to identify attentional weaknesses at an early age, and to identify the nature of the problems as precisely as possible, would have major potential benefits for determining the need for remedial procedures and the nature of such procedures. Moreover, studies of attention in preschool children are rather rare, so it would be useful to demonstrate the usefulness of the task for this purpose.</p> <p>The present study therefore investigated whether 3‐ and 4‐year‐olds, rated by teachers on attentional ability, would show relations between such ratings and performance on the visual search task. On the basis of the results with older children obtained by [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref19">20</reflink>] and [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref20">18</reflink>], it was predicted that such a relation would emerge in the number of errors (mainly false alarms to non‐targets), but not in time per hit or distance travelled per hit, once the contribution of errors to these measures had been removed. On the basis of the results of [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref21">12</reflink>] it was also predicted that older children would show faster and more efficient search and also fewer errors.</p> <hd id="AN0021318905-2">Method</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0021318905-3">Participants</hd> <p>The participants were 103 typically developing children recruited from five nursery schools in the Bridgend area of South Wales (UK). Parental consent was obtained through the nurseries. There were 48 girls (mean chronological age [CA]=43.85 months, range 35–50 months) and 55 boys (mean CA = 44.4 months, range 36–51 months).</p> <hd id="AN0021318905-4">Design</hd> <p>A correlational design was used with measures of verbal mental age (VMA), chronological age (CA), and attention rating, and three measures of performance on the visual search task.</p> <hd id="AN0021318905-5">Materials</hd> <p>Pre‐test trials for visual discrimination and comprehension of the visual search task employed two stimulus cards, one displaying one target circle and the other displaying a target circle and one example of each of the two distractor stimuli described below.</p> <p>[<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref22">12</reflink>] used a version of the task with 10 circular black targets (5.7° visual angle viewed from 30 cm) as the baseline condition, and with 6 or 24 black circles as distractors in the other conditions, these being 2.8° in diameter in the dissimilar distractor condition and 4.2° in the similar distractor condition. In view of the evidence from studies with older children that more difficult tasks discriminated attention groups more successfully, and also the fact that the children in the present study were on average about a year older than those tested by Scerif <emph>et al.</emph>, the task used in the present study employed a single condition designed to be more difficult than those used in the previous study, as established in pilot tests. There were 10 black circular targets, as described above, and two types of distractor: 16 black ellipses of height 4.2° and width 2.8°, and 8 black circles 2.8° in diameter. The display was presented on a 15 inch touch screen (Elo Accu Touch) connected to a laptop computer. The background was light green.</p> <hd id="AN0021318905-6">The SWAN ADHD scale</hd> <p>The SWAN scale ([<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref23">15</reflink>]) includes 18 symptoms incorporated in the DSM‐IV ADHD diagnostic criteria ([<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref24">2</reflink>]). The 18 SWAN items are divided into two subsets each of 9 items corresponding to the domains of inattention (items 0–9) and hyperactivity/impulsivity (items 10–18). The SWAN uses a seven‐point scale anchored to average behaviour for the population, each item being rated <emph>far above average</emph> (−3) to <emph>far below average</emph> (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref25">3</reflink>). Total scores thus range from −27 to 27 for each subscale, with high scores indicating problematical behaviour. The scale asks for ratings in comparison with the child's peers, so is applicable over a range of age groups, including children as young as those in the present study. It has previously been used in a large Australian twin ADHD project over an age range from 4 to 12 years ([<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref26">6</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref27">15</reflink>]) and its predecessor (the SNAP) was used by [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref28">9</reflink>] in a study of boys from 3 to 9 years of age.</p> <p>In the present sample Cronbach's alpha was.98, indicating high reliability. The previous studies of [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref29">20</reflink>] and [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref30">18</reflink>] used the ACTeRs scale ([<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref31">16</reflink>]), which tended to produce highly skewed distributions of scores, with many participants at or near the maximum. Therefore performance of (approximately) the bottom 25% and the top 50% of participants was compared in those studies, rather than employing a correlational design over the whole range of scores. However, scores on the SWAN scale were normally distributed in the present study (mean 0.56, <emph>SD</emph> 11.39, skew −0.38 with standard error 0.25, kurtosis 0.49 with standard error 0.50), and variation in performance over the whole range of this measure was therefore examined.</p> <hd id="AN0021318905-7">British Picture Vocabulary Scale</hd> <p>The British Picture Vocabulary Scale (BPVS; 2nd edition; [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref32">4</reflink>]) was also administered. This requires the child to select, from four pictures, the one that matches a spoken word. Testing proceeds until the child makes four errors in a sequence of six trials.</p> <hd id="AN0021318905-8">Procedure</hd> <p>The SWAN questionnaire was given to teachers before the study in order to obtain the children's ratings of attention and hyperactivity.</p> <p>The children were tested in a quiet area of each nursery and the British Picture Vocabulary Scale ([<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref33">4</reflink>]) was given first. The children then took part in the acuity pre‐test. They were shown a big black circle in the middle of a card and asked to point to it. On the second card the big circle was surrounded by one of each of the distractor shapes (see above) and again they had to point to the big black circle. Only one child was excluded from the experiment on the basis of this test.</p> <p>The children were shown the computer screen, which displayed 10 circular target shapes and 24 distractors, as described above. They were instructed that they had to find the king of the monsters, but in order to find him all of the little monsters had to found first who were hiding under the big black circles and only under these. They were told to keep going until they found the king of the monsters, who would also be under one of the big black circles. The children were then shown, in a demonstration, which holes the monsters were hiding under and also how to touch these holes in order to find monsters. When a target was touched a small monster face appeared in the middle of the circle and remained visible from then on. Unknown to the child, the king, a bigger face with a crown, would only appear on the eighth target touched, or after twenty touches without finding eight targets. Ten targets were present to reduce the problem of a child being unable to see the final target if only one remained. The children then did one practice run, followed by two test runs, all with the same targets and foils, but with different displays on the screen. At the end of the first test run the time taken was given on the screen (although these children would have been unable to read it), and the experimenter provided general encouragement before the second run. Hence neither the initial instructions nor the feedback stressed speed or accuracy specifically, though there was a slight bias toward accuracy in the emphasis that they should look only under the big black circles.</p> <hd id="AN0021318905-9">Results</hd> <p>In summary, children with better attention ratings made fewer errors on the visual search task, and these errors decreased with increasing VMA. There were no other significant relations between VMA, CA, or attention rating and performance measures on the visual search task.</p> <p>Results were calculated for each run of the search task separately so as to discover any effects of practice. Mean time per hit was calculated with time for errors removed (i.e. total time minus the sum of time for error responses, divided by the number of targets found). Likewise mean distance moved across the screen to a hit was calculated with distance moved to errors removed. The total number of false alarms (touches on non‐targets, repeat touches on already located targets, touches on background) was calculated. These measures paralleled those used with older children. Nearly all children found eight targets before completing 20 touch responses, so the number of targets missed was small and was not considered further.</p> <p>Distributions were examined for outliers more than three standard deviations from the mean. Two participants were eliminated who produced extreme times on one run and four participants were eliminated who produced extreme error scores on one run (<emph>N</emph>=2) or both runs (<emph>N</emph>=2). VMA scores were missing for seven participants. Therefore, the sample employed for further calculations numbered 90 children. Means for the various measures are given in Table 1.</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>The distributions of false alarms were significantly positively skewed, despite the removal of the outliers, and a logarithmic transformation was employed to achieve a normal distribution for analysis, as in earlier studies with older children (skew before the transformation was 1.22 for Run 1 and 1.81 for Run 2 with a standard error of 0.25 in both cases, and after log transformation the skews were −0.04 and 0.24, with the same standard error).</p> <p>There were no significant sex differences or run differences on any measure, so mean time for correct responses, mean distance travelled for correct responses, and mean error were calculated over the two runs. The error score was then subjected to a log transformation (after adding one to remove any zero scores). These scores were then entered into separate regression analyses, with VMA, CA, and SWAN attention score as the independent variables. There were no effects approaching significance for time or distance, but error scores were significantly related to both VMA and SWAN attention score. Table 2 gives these results.</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Thus the regression analysis demonstrated a weak relation between SWAN attention score and the number of errors made. However, examination of the scatter‐plot for the relation between attention rating and errors demonstrated that this finding was an oversimplification. Division of the attention scores into four quartiles (−27 to −6, −5 to 0, 1 to 7, and 8 to 24, with <emph>N</emph>=26, 21, 21, and 22, respectively) was more revealing. Table 3 shows the mean error scores for the four quartiles and demonstrates that a rise in error scores only occurred after the SWAN attention score exceeded the mean level. Multiple regression was used to remove the contribution of VMA and CA to the log error scores and to calculate residuals. One way ANOVA on these residual scores, with orthogonal planned comparisons, showed that the first and second quartiles differed significantly from the third and fourth quartiles, <emph>t</emph> (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref34">1</reflink>, 86)=2.52, <emph>p</emph><.01; the first and second quartiles differed at a just‐significant level (<emph>t</emph>=1.96, <emph>p</emph>=.05), and the third and fourth quartiles did not differ at a significant level (<emph>t</emph>=0.75). It should be noted that the marginally significant difference between the first and second quartiles was in the opposite direction from the overall and expected trend, so no great reliance should probably be placed on this finding. These results therefore confirm the impression from the quartile means that the main difference is between the upper and lower halves of the SWAN distribution.</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>The majority of errors were responses to the foils. On average, 1.37 (<emph>SD</emph> 1.84) responses were made to the large ellipse and 1.15 (<emph>SD</emph> 1.36) responses to the small circle. There were 1.19 (<emph>SD</emph> 1.63) other errors consisting of repetitions on already located targets, near misses, and responses to the background. All three types of error showed a similar trend across the attention quartiles to that shown in the overall error scores.</p> <hd id="AN0021318905-10">Discussion</hd> <p>Neither speed of search nor efficiency of search, as measured by distance travelled, varied with CA, VMA, or attention group. However, children with lower VMA and below average attention made more errors. Mean error rates did not vary significantly over the lower half of the distribution of attention ratings (i.e. better attention levels) but rose sharply as ratings indicated increasing attentional weaknesses. This pattern may indicate that cognitive functioning does not show any deterioration until the underlying weakness falls below a certain threshold, or that the SWAN scale is insensitive to variations of ability above the judged mean level of functioning in this population. It is impossible to decide between these alternatives on the basis of the present data.</p> <p>The absence of any relation between CA and performance on the search task differs from the findings of [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref35">12</reflink>], who found that 3‐year‐olds differed from 2‐year‐olds on all three measures; however MA was not included in the analysis of Scerif <emph>et al.</emph>, so the relation between VMA and errors in the present study probably reflects a similar relation to that found by Scerif <emph>et al.</emph>, between CA and errors.</p> <p>The pattern of results is similar to that found by [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref36">18</reflink>] with older children. On the two more difficult tasks used in that study (requiring alternation between two targets or discrimination between targets and closely similar foils) the poor attention group made significantly more errors, but the groups did not differ on the other measures. Wilding argued that the poor attention group had a general weakness rather than specific weaknesses in processes such as switching attention between targets or discriminating, and that this general weakness became more apparent in difficult tasks. This weakness might be one of what is sometimes rather vaguely termed capacity ([<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref37">13</reflink>]) or of motivation, or some factor such as impulsivity, and requires further research to define it more precisely. However, there was no evidence that the higher error rate in the poor attention children was due to faster, more impulsive responding, since no significant changes in speed of correct responses (or errors) were observed as attention rating varied. Nor was there any significant relation between error rate and speed, which would have suggested a trade off of accuracy for speed.</p> <p>The present findings demonstrate that a weakness in visual search performance can be demonstrated in children with poor attention who are younger than those tested by [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref38">18</reflink>]. It also further rebuts the claim of [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref39">8</reflink>], based on a measure of speed only, that children with poor attention are not impaired in selective attention in visual search tasks of this type (continuous search for a sequence of targets). Though the children tested by Manly <emph>et al.</emph>, were formally diagnosed with ADHD and the present children were only rated by teachers for attentional ability, as discussed above there is considerable support for the view that diagnosed cases of ADHD simply represent the tail of a normally distributed ability or abilities, so it is not unreasonable to compare data obtained from these two types of sample. In fact, the results agree in respect of speed measures, and no accuracy data are available from the Manly <emph>et al.</emph>, study, so there is no disagreement between the two sets of findings.</p> <p>The task used in the present study required the children to discriminate large black circles (5.7° visual angle) from upright black ellipses half the width of the circles and smaller black circles of a diameter half that of the targets. This was designed to present a moderately difficult task for children of this age. Further investigation will be needed to examine the effect of varying difficulty in different ways in order to identify the key variables and develop a more precise picture of the factors involved in poor attentional ability. Meanwhile, it is possible to envisage some form of simple remedial training using a task similar to the present one and incorporating more salient rewards for successful responses and deterrents for errors. It would be of interest to observe both the direct effects of such training and evidence for generalization in any improvements that might occur.</p> <p>Initially, the results might seem to imply some impairment of one or more basic components of the mechanisms involved in selective attention in children who receive poor ratings of attention. However, a visual search task of the type employed here involves considerable planning and control, and the indications that differences between groups are more apparent in more difficult versions of the task ([<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref40">18</reflink>]) reinforce the view that it may be the planning and control aspects of the tasks that are critical to the results obtained. Simpler tasks testing focused attention with yes/no responses to single exposures of displays which may or may not contain a target tend not to demonstrate any relation to attentional ability (see [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref41">17</reflink>]). Such tasks make minimal demands on executive function of the type specified above. Recently [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref42">1</reflink>] have made a similar point in regard to memory in children diagnosed with ADHD. They found that such children have particular problems in remembering pictures of objects presented in a non‐conventional view, compared with those presented in a familiar format, and suggested that automatic processing is intact in such children but controlled processes are impaired.</p> <p>The present results offer some support to [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref43">3</reflink>] attribution of attention deficits to weaknesses in inhibition; inhibition being a key component in the functions of the executive system (in preventing responses to inappropriate items, ensuring that a sequence of responses rather than repetition of a single response is carried out, switching between different targets, and so forth). However, there are indications of differential impairment of different kinds of inhibition or differences in the degree of impairment in different groups, such as the repetitions typical of FX syndrome compared with discrimination errors in children with poor attention or with Williams syndrome. Also, other control processes involved in memory may also be impaired ([<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref44">1</reflink>]). These findings indicate that Barkley's simple invocation of behavioural inhibition as the source of all attentional difficulties may need considerable refinement as more evidence is acquired.</p> <ref id="AN0021318905-11"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref34" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Aloisi, B. A., McKone, E., Heubeck, B. 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J. S., Dalen, L., Remington, B., Do executive deficits and delay aversion make independent contributions to preschool attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms? Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 42 1335 – 1342 2003.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Swanson, J., McStephen, M., Hay, D., Levy, F. (2001, June). The potential of the SWAN rating scale in genetic analysis of ADHD. Poster session presented at the 10th Scientific meeting of the International Society for Research in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Vancouver.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Ullman, R. K., Sleator, E. K., Sprague, R. L., A new rating scale for diagnosis and monitoring of ADD children Psychopharmacology Bulletin, 20 160 – 164 1984.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Van der Meere, J. J. (1997). The role of attention In S. A. Sandberg (Ed.), Hyperactivity disorders in childhood (pp. 111 – 148). 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  Data: Attentional Differences between Groups of Preschool Children Differentiated by Teacher Ratings of Attention and Hyperactivity
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Wilding%2C+John%22">Wilding, John</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Burke%2C+Kate%22">Burke, Kate</searchLink>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22British+Journal+of+Developmental+Psychology%22"><i>British Journal of Developmental Psychology</i></searchLink>. Jun 2006 24(2):283-291.
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  Data: British Psychological Society. St Andrews House, 48 Princess Road East, Leicester, LE1 7DR, UK. Tel: +44-116-254-9568; Fax: +44-116-227-1314; e-mail: enquiry@bps.org.uk; Web site: http://www.bpsjournals.co.uk
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  Data: 9
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  Data: 2006
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  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Inhibition%22">Inhibition</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Hyperactivity%22">Hyperactivity</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Preschool+Children%22">Preschool Children</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Attention+Span%22">Attention Span</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Attention+Deficit+Disorders%22">Attention Deficit Disorders</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Visual+Perception%22">Visual Perception</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Visual+Stimuli%22">Visual Stimuli</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Error+Patterns%22">Error Patterns</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Developmental+Psychology%22">Developmental Psychology</searchLink>
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  Data: 10.1348/026151005X36029
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  Label: ISSN
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  Data: 0261-510X
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
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  Data: This study aimed to extend earlier work (Wilding, Munir, & Cornish, 2001; Wilding, 2003) which showed that children (aged 6-15) who were rated by their teachers as having poor attentional ability made more errors on a visual search task than children rated as having good attentional ability. The present study used a simpler version of the search task which had previously been used to study attention in children with Fragile X syndrome (Scerif, Cornish, Wilding, Driver, & Karmiloff-Smith, 2004) and studied performance in normal children from a younger age group. Children aged 3 and 4 were rated by teachers for attention and hyperactivity. Regression analyses, with verbal mental age (VMA), chronological age (CA), and attention rating as independent variables, found that children with higher VMA made fewer false alarms in visual searches, as did children given a better attention rating. However, none of the independent variables was related to time or distance travelled for correct responses. The relation between attention rating and error rate was non-linear, with the error rate increasing once the attention rating fell below the mean. The results are discussed in relation to explanations of poor attention in terms of weak inhibition.
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  Data: 2011
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  Data: EJ941037
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        PageCount: 9
        StartPage: 283
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Inhibition
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Hyperactivity
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Preschool Children
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Attention Span
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Attention Deficit Disorders
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Visual Perception
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Visual Stimuli
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      – SubjectFull: Error Patterns
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      – SubjectFull: Developmental Psychology
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: Attentional Differences between Groups of Preschool Children Differentiated by Teacher Ratings of Attention and Hyperactivity
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            – TitleFull: British Journal of Developmental Psychology
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