The development of and interaction among alerting, orienting, and executive attention in children

Mullane, Jennifer C.; Lawrence, Michael Anthony; Corkum, Penny; Klein, Raymond M.; McLaughlin, Elizabeth

doi:10.1080/09297049.2014.981252

Cited by 54 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…The trajectories of attention growth observed confirm previous cross-sectional studies that used the ANT, which described an ongoing development of some aspects of attention during early and late childhood (i.e., ages 5–12) (Mezzacappa, 2004; Rueda et al, 2004; Mullane et al, 2016; Federico et al, 2017). This is consistent with neuroimaging studies reporting continued myelinization of the neural circuitry involved in attention processes until adolescence (Hudspeth and Pribram, 1992; Konrad et al, 2005).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

“…Regarding the developmental trajectories of the attention networks, for alerting we found a slow progression toward the end of the investigated age range (Ridderinkhof et al, 1997; Gupta and Kar, 2009; Mullane et al, 2016; Federico et al, 2017). Alertness starts to develop in the first few postnatal weeks and by the third month babies are able to maintain an alert state in relation to the external sensory stimulation (Rueda et al, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

“…For orienting we obtained no significant age changes in children from 7 to 11 years old, consistent with the formerly described early maturation of this network. The executive attention network follows a more prolonged development during childhood and into early adolescence (Ridderinkhof et al, 1997; Rueda et al, 2004; van Meel et al, 2012; Loher and Roebers, 2013; Mullane et al, 2016). Executive attention involves detecting and resolving conflict among responses, error detection and response inhibition.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Longitudinal Study on Attention Development in Primary School Children with and without Teacher-Reported Symptoms of ADHD

et al. 2017

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Background: Prospective longitudinal studies are essential in characterizing cognitive trajectories, yet few of them have been reported on the development of attention processes in children. We aimed to explore attention development in normal children and children with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in a repeated measures design using the attention network test (ANT).Methods: The population sample included 2,835 children (49.6% girls) aged 7–11 years from 39 schools in Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) who performed the ANT four times from January 2012 to March 2013. According to teacher ratings, 10.5% of the children presented ADHD symptoms. We performed multilevel mixed-effects linear regression models, adjusting for school and individual, to test the effects of age-related growth on the ANT networks: alerting, orienting and executive attention, and three measurements related to attentiveness: median of hit reaction time (HRT), hit reaction time standard error (HRT-SE) and variability.Results: We observed age-related growth in all the outcomes, except orienting. The curves were steeper at the younger groups, although for alertness the improvement was further at the oldest ages. Gender and ADHD symptoms interacted with age in executive attention, HRT and variability. Girls performed better in executive attention at young ages although boys reached females at around 10 years of age. For HRT, males showed faster HRT. However, girls had a more pronounced improvement and reached the levels of boys at age 11. Children with ADHD symptoms had significant differences in executive attention, HRT and variability compared to children without ADHD symptoms.Conclusions: We detected an ongoing development of some aspects of attention in primary school children, differentiating patterns by gender and ADHD symptoms. Our findings support the ANT for assessing attention processes in children in large epidemiological studies.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Longitudinal Study on Attention Development in Primary School Children with and without Teacher-Reported Symptoms of ADHD

et al. 2017

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“…Imaging indicates that their anatomies, while distinct, can interact to influence performance [10*,11]. During development, the scores for these networks have also been related to individual differences in temperament as measured by parent reports of their child’s degree of effortful control, negative affect, and surgency [6, 12,13**].…”

Section: Development Of Attentional Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing brain networks of attention

Posner

Rothbart²,

Voelker³

2016

Current Opinion in Pediatrics

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Purpose of Review Attention is a primary cognitive function critical for perception, language, and memory. We provide an update on brain networks related to attention, their development, training and pathologies. Recent Findings An executive attention network, also called the cingulo-opercular network, allows voluntary control of behavior in accordance with goals. Individual differences among children in self regulation have been measured by a higher order factor called effortful control (EC) which is related to executive network and to the size of the anterior cingulate cortex. Summary Brain networks of attention arise in infancy and are related to individual differences including pathology during childhood. Methods of training attention may improve performance and ameliorate pathology.

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“…The choice of these age groups was justified by recent studies showing that although some aspects of attention are relatively well developed at the time children reach the age of schooling, other components of attention continue to develop during middle (i.e., 6-9 years of age) and late (i.e., 10-12 years of age) childhood (e.g., Casey, Durston, & Fossella, 2001;Mullane, Lawrence, Corkum, Klein, & McLaughlin, 2014;Posner & Rothbart, 2007;Ridderinkhof, van der Molen, Band, & Bashore, 1997;Rueda, Fan, et al, 2004;van der Molen, 2000). Second, in line with previous studies (Mullane et al, 2014;Rueda, Fan, et al, 2004;, we hypothesized that younger children would display significantly weaker alerting and less efficient executive attention than older children. Second, in line with previous studies (Mullane et al, 2014;Rueda, Fan, et al, 2004;, we hypothesized that younger children would display significantly weaker alerting and less efficient executive attention than older children.…”

Section: The Present Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development in attention functions and social processing: Evidence from the Attention Network Test

Federico

Marotta

Martella

et al. 2016

British J of Dev Psycho

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According to the attention network approach, attention is best understood in terms of three functionally and neuroanatomically distinct networks - alerting, orienting, and executive attention. Recent findings showed that social information influences the efficiency of these networks in adults. Using some social and non-social variants of the Attentional Network Test (ANT), this study was aimed to evaluate the development of the three attention networks in childhood, also assessing the development of the ability to manage social or non-social conflicting information. Sixty-six children (three groups of 6, 8, and 10 years of age) performed three variants of the original ANT, using fish, schematic, or real faces looking to the left or right as target and flanker stimuli. Results showed an improvement from 6 to 8 and 10 years of age in reaction time (RT) and accuracy, together with an improvement of executive control and a decrement in alerting. These developmental changes were not unique to social stimuli, and no differences were observed between social and no-social variants of the ANT. However, independently from the age of the children, a real face positively affected the executive control (as indexed by RTs) as compared to both a schematic face and a fish. Findings of this study suggest that attentional networks are still developing from 6 to 10 years of age and underline the importance of face information in modulating the efficiency of executive control. Statement of contribution What is already known? Younger children made more errors and slower reaction times (RTs) than older children, in line with the majority of the past selective attention studies. Younger children showed both greater conflict and alerting effect than older children. The prediction that younger children would display larger interference effects than older children was supported. What does this study add? Extending the findings observed in adults and children, independently from their age, demonstrated greater cognitive interference (i.e., slower RTs and higher percentage of errors to incongruent relative to congruent conditions) when fish and schematic faces were presented than when photographs of real faces were used as stimuli. Like adults, children have a greater ability in the control of social information as compared to non-social information. These results seem to indicate that the ability to handle social conflicts proceeds in parallel with the ability to manage non-social conflicting information.

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The development of and interaction among alerting, orienting, and executive attention in children

Cited by 54 publications

References 56 publications

A Longitudinal Study on Attention Development in Primary School Children with and without Teacher-Reported Symptoms of ADHD

A Longitudinal Study on Attention Development in Primary School Children with and without Teacher-Reported Symptoms of ADHD

Developing brain networks of attention

Development in attention functions and social processing: Evidence from the Attention Network Test

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