Sustained attention in school-aged children: sex and cognitive development

The ability to maintain attention is key in the cognitive development and academic performance of schoolchildren. This study analyzed sustained attention in 220 children (aged 7 to13), evaluating hits, false alarms, reaction times, sensitivity, and response criterion, according to Signal Detection Theory (SDT). The results showed that younger children had lower performance compared to older ones, who made fewer errors, had greater ability to discriminate between stimuli, and had faster reaction times with more conservative response criteria. There was a discontinuity observed in the development of attention, which increased up to the age of 8 and remains thereafter. Although no differences in performance were found between boys and girls, either in sensitivity or response criterion, boys were faster in their responses than girls. These findings suggest that educational programs should be tailored to the developmental needs of each age group and consider gender differences in reaction times.