Development of attentional networks in intellectually gifted children

Abstract

Intellectually gifted children (IGC) have high performance in many domains of the attention than intellectually average children (IAC). However, few studies investigated the development of the alerting, orienting and executive control networks, in IGC. The aim of our study is to analyze the development of these networks in IGC compared to typical developing children and young adults.Fifty-four IGC (age range 8–14 years-old) were compared to 54 IAC (age range 8–14 years-old) and 60 young adults (age range 19–25 years-old) using the Attention Network Test (ANT) to assess these three attentional constructs. Results indicated IGC had better performance than IAC in executive control only. Both children groups have lower attentional network scores than young adults. IGC have probably the same development of the IAC in all attentional networks to the late childhood at adolescence. But they have better ability to focus volitionally in order to solve a simple conflict than IAC.