Purpose: Over the past several decades, cognitive science researchers have made considerable progress in understanding how people learn. However, this research has very rarely guided development of educational curricula or interventions. This project, based on research regarding what affects young children's ability to maintain attention despite distractions, aims to develop and assess methods to improve attentional focus in preschoolers who are at high risk for school failure. Initial studies suggest that such interventions may be able to improve young children's performance on a wide range of skills (e.g., language development, preliteracy, attention, memory, and early numeracy skills). The purpose of this project is to further develop, test, analyze, and document the effects of attention training interventions for improving young children's cognitive and school performance.

Project Activities: In the first year, the researchers will use prior research, theory, and feedback from preschool teachers to further develop and refine the attention training activities. In subsequent years they will conduct a study in which 225 Head Start preschoolers are matched on pretest scores and then randomly assigned to the attention intervention condition or to one of two control conditions. The study is designed to test whether attention training activities will improve child outcomes on a variety of tests during preschool (e.g., language development, early literacy, and numeracy skills), and whether or not these effects are sustained through first grade. The attention training intervention will consist of small group sessions of 40 minutes per day for eight weeks. Prior to and following each eight-week period, the children will be tested on standardized tests of cognition and indices of language and attention.

Products: The outcomes of this research will include a set of refined attention training activities for use in early childhood classrooms. In addition, the team will produce published reports describing the immediate and long-term outcomes of participating in this training on young children's cognition, language, and attention.

Structured Abstract

Purpose: This project aims to develop and assess methods to improve attentional focus in preschoolers who are at high risk for school failure. The purpose of this project is to further develop, test, analyze, and document the effects of attention training interventions for improving young children's cognitive and school performance.

Setting: The preschools are located in Oregon.

Population: Project participants will be 225 Head Start preschoolers. The children will all be monolingual speakers of English, right-handed, have uneventful perinatal and medical histories, normal visual acuity, color vision, and pass a hearing screening.

Intervention: The intervention is designed to mimic "discovery time," a time that all Head Start classes include as a part of their daily routine, but with a smaller student/teacher ratio. Most discovery times include circle time when a book is read and new ideas are introduced as a lesson. After circle time, children are often split into subgroups, based on ability or behavior, to practice skills. The remainder of discovery time is usually open to allow children to freely choose any of the following activities: teacher-directed art activities, building blocks, listening centers, puzzles, sand/dirt/water exploration tables, dress-up, writing, reading centers, and computers. The attention intervention incorporates a set of systematic games and exercises that emphasize many different aspects of attention including: sustained, selective, divided and alternating attention, self-regulation, and overall body awareness. For example, children are taught what parts of their body they can control (e.g. eyes and ears) and are praised for exhibiting self-control. Children participate in games like Simon Says, or Pick-Up Sticks, which require both attention and self-regulation. Children are also asked to spend time exploring the details of an object. The attention intervention and one control group will be led by one teacher and one aide from the project who will work with five children per group (i.e. a 5:2 student/teacher ratio). These groups will meet for 40 minutes each school day for eight weeks.

Research Designs and Methods: The researchers will conduct a random-assignment evaluation in which children will be assigned either to the attention training intervention condition or to one of two control conditions. Children will be followed from the beginning of the preschool year through the end of first grade.

Control Condition: Children in a "large group" control group will attend regular Head Start as usual in groups with an 18:2 student/teacher ratio. Children in a "small group" control group will also receive the regular Head Start curriculum, but with a lower student/teacher ratio for part of the day. The small group condition is intended to control for the "small group instructional environment" that the attention training intervention group receives (i.e., to test whether it is participating in a small group environment that produces as opposed to receiving the attention training activities).

Key Measures: Children will complete a set of standardized assessments of attention, language, pre-literacy, memory, visuo-spatial processing, numeracy, and non-verbal IQ. Event-related brain potential (ERP) indices of neural systems important in attention and language processing will also be gathered from participating children. When the children are in kindergarten and first grade, their scores on four subtests of the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) will be gathered.

Data Analytic Strategy: The data will be analyzed using analysis of covariance, using children's pretest scores as the covariate.

Related IES Projects: Longitudinal Follow-up of Successful Parent/Child Intervention in Pre-school Children At Risk for School Failure (R305A110397) and Training Attention in At-risk Preschoolers: Expansion of our Successful Program to a Wider Population within Head Start (R305A110398)

Products and Publications

Book chapter, edition specified

Stevens, C., and Neville, H. (2009). Profiles of Development and Plasticity in Human Neurocognition. In M.S. Gazzaniga, E. Bizzi, L.M. Chalupa, S.T. Grafton, T.F. Heatherton, C. Koch, and B.A. Wandell (Eds.), The Cognitive Neurosciences (4th ed., pp. 165–181). Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute Of Technology.

Journal article, monograph, or newsletter

Isbell, E., Wray, A.H., and Neville, H.J. (2015). Individual Differences in Neural Mechanisms of Selective Auditory Attention in Preschoolers from Lower Socioeconomic Status Backgrounds: An Event Related Potentials Study. Developmental Science, 19(6): 865–880.

Neville, H.J., Stevens, C., Pakulak, E., Bell, T.A., Fanning, J., Klein, S., and Isbell, E. (2013). Family-Based Training Program Improves Brain Function, Cognition, and Behavior in Lower Socioeconomic Status Preschoolers. PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 110(29): 12138–12143.

Stevens, C., Harn, B., Chard, D.J., Currin, J., Parisi, D., and Neville, H. (2013). Examining the Role of Attention and Instruction in At-Risk Kindergarteners: Electrophysiological Measures of Selective Auditory Attention Before and After an Early Literacy Intervention. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 46(1): 73–86.

Stevens, C., Lauinger, B., and Neville, H. (2009). Differences in the Neural Mechanisms of Selective Attention in Children From Different Socioeconomic Backgrounds: An Event-Related Brain Potential Study. Developmental Science, 12(4): 634–646.