Attention in Early Development Themes and Variations [Paperback]

This book provides both a review of the literature and a theoretical framework for understanding the development of visual attention from infancy through early childhood. Taking a functional approach to the topic, the authors discuss the development of the selective and state-related aspects of attention, as well as the emergence of higher-level controls. They also explore the individual differences in these facets of attention, and consider the possible origins of early deficits in attention, which has obvious implications for children with developmental disorders such as attention-deficit hyperactive disorder. These findings will be invaluable to developmental, cognitive, and clinical psychologists and psychiatrists.

1. Introduction
2. Constructs and Measures
3. Looking and Visual Attention: Overview and Developmental Framework
4. Scanning, Searching, and Shifting Attention
5. Development of Selectivity
6. Development of Attention as a State
7. Focused Visual Attention and Resistance to Distraction
8. Increasing Independence in the Control of Attention
9. Attention in Learning and Performance
10. Individual Differences in Attention
11. Early Manifestations of Attention Deficits
12. Individuality and Development
13. Recapitulation
References
Author Index
Subject Index

Ruff and Rothbart have produced a plausible account of the role and development of attention in children. Although the major dependent measures have been based on visual inspection paradigms, this is justified in view of the predominant visual repertoire of humans and the ease of studying this modality in young children. They have produced some testable hypotheses and, where possible, have tried to back up their ideas with neurophysiological findings. This is a relatively new trend in developmental psychology and one to be encouraged. Readers of developmental psychology and attention researchers interested in the origins and development of thl(