Executive Functions and Their Differential Contribution to Sustained Attention in 5- to 8-Year-Old Children

Abstract

Everyday routine in general and school settings in particular make high demands on children's abilities to sustain their focus of attention over longer time periods. School tasks thus require the child to accomplish the task on an appropriate level of performance while maintaining the focus of attention even under repetitious or distracting conditions. However, sustained attention (SA) may be a more heterogeneous construct than commonly assumed as it requires the individual not only to sustain attentional capacities but also to store and maintain the task rule (working memory), to inhibit inappropriate responses (inhibition), and to switch according to requirements (switching). It might thus involve processes counted among executive functions (EF). In the present study, performance in EF tasks (covering the core components inhibition, switching, and working memory) and in a SA task was assessed in 118 children, aged between 5;0 and 8;11 years. Similar age-dependent performance trajectories were found in EF components and SA, indicating ongoing performance improvements between 5 until at least 8 years of age in SA and in EF. Interrelations between single EF components and SA showed to be small to moderate. Finally, different patterns of SA performance predictions were found in age-homogeneous subgroups with inhibition being crucial for SA performance in the youngest and switching in the oldest age group. Taken as a whole, even though similarities in assumed developmental trajectories and substantial interrelations point to common underlying processes in EF and SA, age-dependent patterns of explained variance indicate clear discriminability.

Executive Functions in 5- to 8-Year Olds: Developmental Changes and Relationship to Academic Achievement

“…Means and standard deviations of the test scores at T1 and T3 are shown in Table 1. (Röthlisberger, Neuenschwander, Michel, & Roebers, 2010;Loher & Roebers, 2013), children were presented pictures of different fruits and vegetables, either in correct, black and white or incorrect colour. Four different pages, with five rows of five stimuli in each row were presented.…”

Healthy Breakfast on Learning Concentration of Junior High School Students

“…Younger children are harder to concentrate than older children because they are more often adapt actively with disorders and more focused on the task. Research by Loher, Sarah and Roebers (2013) suggests that younger children have less inhibition or impediment and motor control impairment than older children with switching ability or adaptation response capability to better environmental change. Junior high school students including early adolescents who are in a period of increased growth one of them is a cognitive change.…”

A latent growth curve analysis of precursor cognitive abilities and academic achievement

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