Leisure items (e.g., games, toys) are commonly made available as controls during attention conditions of functional analyses (Ringdahl, Winborn, Andelman, & Kitsukawa, 2002). However, Ringdahl et al. raised questions about this practice. This paper reviews research that supports and conflicts with the inclusion of leisure items as controls,…

The focus of the present study was to examine covert orienting responses to peripheral flash cues among children with autism in a situation where attentional processes were taxed by the presence of distractors in the visual field. Fourteen children with autism (MA = 6-7 years) were compared to their MA-matched peers without autism on a forced…

This study investigated the effects of familiarization and attention on event-related potential (ERP) correlates of recognition memory in infants. Infants 4.5, 6, or 7.5 months of age were either familiarized with 2 stimuli that were used during later testing or presented 2 stimuli that were not used later. Then, infants were presented with a…

The present study was conducted to examine the development of attentional and oculomotor control. More specifically, the authors were interested in the development of the ability to inhibit an incorrect but prepotent response to a salient distractor. Participants, who ranged in age from 8 to 25 years, performed 3 different eye movement tasks: a…

Using an adaptation of the Attentional Networks Test, we investigated aspects of executive control in children with chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (DS22q11.2), a common but not well understood disorder that produces non-verbal cognitive deficits and a marked incidence of psychopathology. The data revealed that children with DS22q11.2…

The purpose of this study is to see if older adults who experience problems with thought suppression tend to encounter greater difficulty deriving a sense of meaning in life. Data from a longitudinal nationwide survey of older people (N = 988) indicate that greater difficulty with thought suppression is associated with a decline in meaning over…

The aim of this study was to ascertain the nature of the interaction between the affective value of musical distraction, personality type and performance on the cognitive tasks of reading comprehension, free recall, mental arithmetic and verbal reasoning in children aged 11-12 years. It was hypothesized that the cognitive performance of extraverts…

This article consists of a review of 16 research studies on treatments in school settings for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) carried out in the last decade. It includes both simple interventions and multicomponent interventions where different techniques are combined. Based on this revision, the conclusion is drawn…

The Concept Shifting Test (CST) is a newly developed Trail Making Type test that measures concept shifting and executive functioning. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether CST performance was affected by age, gender, educational level, or handedness and to establish the normal range of test performance. The CST was…

Current test anxiety theory suggests that achievement differences between high and low anxious students are due to differences in attention. In an attempt to investigate the interaction between various components of test anxiety, stress, and tasks measuring attentional flexibility, undergraduate students (N=45) completed Sarason's Test Anxiety…

The purpose of this article is to report how a guidance consultant was able to model the use of the encouragement process plus immediate corrective feedback to help one boy improve his arithmetic achievement and attending behavior in the classroom. (Author)

Children of ages 5 and 8 years were given one of three learning tasks: (a) a component selection problem, in which two stimulus components were redundant and (b) two incidental learning tasks, in which one component of the stimuli was task-relevant and the other was incidental. A posttest, measuring the children's recall for information about each…

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of conditioning subjects to believe expectancy statements, and to demonstrate the effects of the conditioning on persistence and persistence of attention. A review of related research on suggestion, on cognitive dissonance, and on conditioning is included. The subjects for the experiment…