Development of attention mechanisms among Brazilian fundamental level students

This study aimed to investigate the development of attention among Brazilian fundamental level students (levels I and II) from the city of Natal-RN/Brasil. A sample of 561 students took part in this study, with ages varying from seven to fourteen years; all participants had their attention processes evaluated by the Teste de Atenção por Cancelamento (Attention by Cancelling Test), proposed by Montiel e Capovilla (2007). Data issued from this procedure showed an ascending pattern related to school level for participants’ performance in accuracy and speed for tasks evaluating selectivity and alternation. School level as independent variable led to statistically significant contrasts concerning participants’ performance (p<0.05), allowing to conclude that this performance should be related to that variable, together with neurological development. Performance related to alternate and selective attention increased significantly through the three first years of fundamental level; performance in selective attention, specifically, was stabilized by the three last years of fundamental level, which suggests the occurrence of a developmental plateau of this attention mechanism by this period; finally, data related to performance in alternation showed a maintained, continuous ascending pattern, which can be explained by the fact that important maturational and neurodevelopmental processes in executive attention processes has yet to occur by this period of life.