The Effects of Developmental Delay on Sustained Attention in Young Children

Abstract

The development of developmentally delayed young children is similar to that of normal children in sequence and organization. The hypothesis of this research was that delayed children do differ from the norm when tasks involve discerning nuances, balancing competing stimuli, or acquiring and retaining selected information. Using a videotaped free-play situation, we examined attention deployment behaviors of 3 groups: normally developing (ND), Down syndrome (DS), and developmentally delayed with uncertain etiology (UE). Gesell DQ scores ranged from 50 to 75 in the latter 2 samples. In Study 1, infants had developmental ages of 12-24 months. The UE subjects spent less time engaged with toys than ND or DS subjects, and both delayed groups had less simultaneous appraisal of the environment, more time unoccupied in any way, and more throwing behavior than the ND group. In Study 2, at the 22-30-month developmental age range, DS and UE subjects had patterns of play that included many primitive activities such as banging and mouthing. Taken together, the results show reductions in ongoing acquisition and elaboration of information during play; these in turn may have significant developmental ramifications.

Visual filtering and covert orienting in persons with Down syndrome

“…The logic of the additive factors method is based on the notion that if two task components rely on a single attention al mechanism for their efficient execution, as in the capacity limited view, then the utilization of both components ~imultaneously should have either a facilitating or hindering effect on performance (Enns, 1990 However, when a eue provided erroneous information regarding the location of a subsequent target. the ability to inhibit the processing of distraeting stimuli was significantly diminished (Enns, 1990 aspect of their environ ment as they tend to shift their attention inappropnately from one stimulus to the next, and therefore, they do not process the relevant informatio'l (Krakow & Kopp, 1983;Landry & Chapieski, 1989). Theyalso have difficultIes focusing on only one relevant aspect of a multi-faoeted presentation and ignoring the Irrelevant ones (Krakow & Kopp, 1983).…”

“…the ability to inhibit the processing of distraeting stimuli was significantly diminished (Enns, 1990 aspect of their environ ment as they tend to shift their attention inappropnately from one stimulus to the next, and therefore, they do not process the relevant informatio'l (Krakow & Kopp, 1983;Landry & Chapieski, 1989). Theyalso have difficultIes focusing on only one relevant aspect of a multi-faoeted presentation and ignoring the Irrelevant ones (Krakow & Kopp, 1983). Under such circumstances, their accuracy in task performance declines as they are distracted by the irrelevant stimuli in their environ ment (Lunzer & Stratford, 1984;Miezejeski, 1974;Zekulen, Gibson, Mosley, & Brown, 1974).…”

“…Similarly, as compared with infants with mental retardation of unknown etiology (Krakow & Kopp, 1983) and premature infants at risk for developmental delay (Landry & Chapieski, 1989), infants and children wlth Down syndrome were more likely to focus on either irrelevant aspects of a presentation (Landry & Chapieski, 1989) or on only one of the relevant aspects of it (Krakow & Kopp, 1983). This is indicative of the ability of infants and children with Down syndrome to process only a smalI amount of the mformation available to them.…”

“…a presentation to the other (Landry & Chapies1(i, 1989;Krakow & Kopp, 1983) are evidence of deficits in the areas of visual ti Itering and covert orienting. Visual filtering is the attentional comp<.ment rcsponsible for focusing on relevant stimuli and ignoring lrrelevant stimuli (Enns, 1990).…”

Memory and representation in young children with Down syndrome: Exploring deferred imitation and object permanence

“…The cup was frequently put to the mouth as if enacting drinking behaviors instead of imitating the target act itself. This suggests that young children with DS may have difficulty in overcoming or inhibiting routinized behaviors with familiar objects (Krakow & Kopp, 1983), which could be mistaken as a RAST and MELTZOFF …”