Abstract

Chapter 7 discusses the notion of attention over the period of development from infancy through adolescence and emphasizes the importance of teasing apart attention subcomponents and tracing their pathways through this entire period. A rich literature exists on age-related changes in the preschool and childhood years that include developmentally sensitive periods characterized by spurts of growth followed by periods of stability. However, different attention subcomponents produce very different developmental trajectories. The relative paucity of research in the adolescent period prevents firm conclusions from being drawn about age trajectories from late childhood to early adulthood, a critical time period that needs more substantive research. As well, future longitudinal designs need to include developmentally sensitive paradigms that can identify subtle changes in performance. It will also need to adopt more sophisticated methods of identifying and evaluating specific attentional functions across a wide age range. [