Attentional and Executive Function Behaviours in Children with Poor Working Memory.

By Susan E. Gathercole *, Tracy Packiam Alloway, Hannah Kirkwood, Julian G. Elliott, Joni Holmes, K. Hilton. 2008

237 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract The purpose of this study was to explore the profiles of classroom behaviour relating to attention and executive functions in children with very poor working memory, and to test the hypothesis that inattentive behaviour and working memory problems co-occur. Teachers rated problem behaviours of 52 children with low working memory scores aged 5/6 and 9/10 years on teacher rating measures of attention and executive function behaviours. The majority of children with low working memory scores obtained atypically high ratings of cognitive problems/ inattentive symptoms, and were judged to have short attention spans, high levels of distractibility, problems in monitoring the quality of their work, and difficulties in generating new solutions to problems. These results extend previous findings that working memory problems and inattentive behaviour co-occur to a non-clinical sample. It is suggested that reduced working memory capacity may play a causal role in the problem behaviours of these children.

Subfields: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Psychiatry and Mental health, Statistics and Probability

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/debb8b506a7ca1e1d612ff34fe50afda7ec9a8cd

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In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

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Citations in the corpus

The Development of Cognitive Skills and Gains in Academic School Readiness for Children from Low-Income Families (2010, background): “…control functions, deficits in attention control and working memory often co-occur among young elementary school children, such that a majority of children with low working memory show high rates of inattentive behaviors including short attention spans and distractibility (Gathercole et al., 2008).”
Teachers’ Reported Use of Instructional and Behavior Management Practices for Students with Behavior Problems: Relationship to Role and Level of Training in ADHD (2011, background): “Finally, weaknesses in executive functions (e.g., working memory) are often evident in students with ADHD and in students who exhibit attention problems ( Alloway 2008; Thorell 2007; Willcutt et al. 2005).”
Evaluating the validity of the Automated Working Memory Assessment (2008, unknown): “…are typically judged by teachers to have poor attention span and high levels of distractibility but not the hyperactive/impulsive behavior characteristic of ADHD (Alloway, Gathercole, Kirkwood, & Elliott, in press-a; Gathercole et al., 2008; also Aronen, Vuontele, Steenari, Salmi, & Carlson, 2005).”