Abstract

LIMA, Ricardo Franco de; AZONI, Cíntia Alves Salgado  and  CIASCA, Sylvia Maria. Attentional performance and executive functions in children with learning difficulties. Psicol. Reflex. Crit. [online]. 2011, vol.24, n.4, pp. 685-691. ISSN 0102-7972.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-79722011000400008.

Studies have described changes in visual attention and executive function in children with developmental dyslexia. This study intended to compare the performance of children with and without learning difficulties on tasks of visual attention and executive functions. The participants were 23 students, aged between 9 and 14 years old, with a mean age of 10.8 years. They were divided into three groups: (a) with learning difficulties; (b) with dyslexia; and (c) control (without any difficulty). For the evaluation, Tests of Cancellation, Trail Making Test, Stroop Color-Word Test and Tower of London Test were used. The results indicated that children with dyslexia had the worst performance on different measures of attention and executive functions, indicating that such changes may be characteristic of the disorder and keep the deficit in the phonological component of language.

Keywords : Visual Attention; Executive Functions; Dyslexia; Neuropsychology.