The Effect of Single-Session Mindfulness Training on Preschool Children's Attentional Control

The current study examined how a single-session mindfulness training influenced attentional control in preschool children. Based on previous work, a 15-min long mindfulness training program was developed. The training effect was examined via a within- and between-subject mixed design. Preschool children (N = 122; M age = 65.1 months, SD = 6.5) were randomly assigned to two intervention conditions, the mindfulness training and active control. Before and after the intervention, the Global-Local test and the Child version Attention Network Task (ANT) were conducted to measure children's abilities to control the scope of attention and the content of attention, respectively. Results showed that the mindfulness training decreased the use of global processing in children who were initially predominated by global processing and also decreased the use of local processing among the children who were predominated by local processing, though the mindfulness training did not influence children's performance on the ANT. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.