Abstract

MONTEOLIVA, Juan Manuel; ISON, Mirta Susana  and  PATTINI, Andrea Elvira. Attentional performance assessment in children: Effectiveness, efficiency and yield. Interdisciplinaria [online]. 2014, vol.31, n.2, pp.213-225. ISSN 1668-7027.

In the educational field the behavior problems and attentional disorders are risk factors, which affect the academic performance of the child. In the teaching-learning process, a child uses different forms of attention. In one task, the child selects relevant information and inhibits the others. Perhaps, should divide his attention and switch his focus of attention between two or more sources of information, holding -intentionally- these activities for a specified time. The importance of the development of learning processes requires the evaluation of the children's attentional abilities in the educational field as valid and reliable instruments adapted to the school population. This work, focused from the Development Neuropsychology approach, proposes two new indices called attentional efficiency and attentional yield for the evaluation of attention through the Perception of Differences Test - CARAS. As a main feature, the CARAS, has 60 blocks stimuli each composed of three schematic drawings of faces (with elementary strokes representing the mouth, eyes, eyebrows and hair), one of which is different. The task is to determine the different side and cross it off. These proposed indicators arise with new modes of administration of the Test CARAS and the need for greater accuracy in evaluating attentional. Attentional efficiency is defined (AF) as the cognitive ability to regulate and optimize the attentional mechanism to select and maintain attention for an extended period of time, using minimal resources of time available. Moreover, attentional yield (AY) is the product resulting from the level of effectiveness and efficiency obtained in selection and sustained attentional task. Mathematical expressions derived from the proposed indicators, arising from the chronological review of developments since the original technique to methods and scores currently used today. We believe that the progress made in this work have enriched the analysis in the evaluation of attention and use of the CARAS Test. Although, attentional efficiency, produced advances in the interpretation of the results, new developments in the application of the test methods, that is, analyzing the execution after 3 minutes, have proposed new challenges. Currently with these contributions not only have the chance to meet attentional efficacy (AE) in a period of focused attention mainly, but also its attentional efficiency (AF) and attentional yield (AY) in periods of sustained attention (after three minutes until completion of the task). The proposed indicators have been evident in the pilot test with 48 children greater representation of attentional skills and fluctuations, from the study of different evaluation times. The pilot test was conducted in the institution primary school, located in the city of Mendoza (Argentina). This paper presents the limitation of being a pilot study on a small sample of students. However, it served to apply in real cases the proposed concepts. These results come from children in urban public schools so the interpretation of the results must be contextualized. It must also recognize the importance of further assessments for adequate attentional diagnosis. Currently being developed complementary to regional scale attentional efficacy (AE) with attentional efficiency indicators (AF) and attentional yield (AY) from a random sample of 5000 students in first through seventh grade belonging to marginal - urban and urban primary schools state of Mendoza. This work allows introducing the term attentional performance as the result of integrating the concepts of attentional efficiency (AE), attentional efficiency (AF) and attentional yield (AY) in visual search tasks. With this type of study is to provide a form of analysis, which considers the different aspects involved in visual search tasks used to assess attentional performance.

Keywords : Attentional performance; Test on Perception of Differences (CARAS); Attentional efficacy; Attentional efficiency; Attentional yield.

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