An evaluation of several measures of attention and inhibition in ten year old children

Abstract

Due to numerous definitions for attention and inhibition, it is very difficult to operationalize and measure these constructs (Barkley, 1996). The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether there is evidence for independence between attention and inhibition constructs using measures from the TEA-ch, Gordon CPT, Stroop Task, WISC- Digit Span and Go-No-Go Tasks and tasks of inhibition. Each of 140 students were evaluated on all measures and scores were correlated. In addition, Teacher Ratings and scores from the OLSAT were also correlated with attention and inhibition scores. Gender differences between all scores were also examined. Overall, measures did not correlate as expected. Results showed that there were significant but weak correlations among the sustained and selective attention variables. Similarly, when all inhibition variables were correlated only four significant but weak correlations were found. The lack of convergent validity and low correlations among these measures suggest that attention and inhibition constructs may be multi-dimensional. Intercorrelations between attention and inhibition variables were also weak. Relationships between OLSAT scores, Teachers Ratings and attention and inhibition variables showed that as scores that reflect reasoning skills and Teacher Ratings increased, the ability to attend and inhibit also increased. Gender differences in attention and inhibition scores were also examined and showed that girls were better at paying attention to stimuli and inhibiting impulsive responses than boys.