Samenhang tussen Executieve Aandacht, Schoolprestaties en Gedrag bij Typisch Ontwikkelende Kleuters

Abstract

This bachelor thesis discusses the association between executive attention and school achievement and behavior in the classroom in typically developing 4-6 year old Dutch children (N = 46). The data were obtained with the TEAK, a new Dutch test battery which is supposed to measure executive attention. The subtasks of this test battery were a sustained attention task, selective visual attention task, counterpointing task and go/no-go task. Teachers of the children completed the teacher version of the SDQ. The Cito-rekenen and Cito-taal scores were obtained from them as well. A significant positive association was found between the sustained attention task and hyperactivity/inattention. Furthermore, there was a negative association between the sustained attention task, the selective visual attention task and the go/no-go task and Cito-rekenen and between the sustained attention task and age of the children. There were no significant associations found between the four subtasks and prosocial behavior and emotion regulation. Because of reversing the scores of the subtasks, the results must be interpreted in the opposite way. In conclusion, there were some small significant associations found in accordance with previous research, but more research is needed. Future research needs to take into account the limitations of this study.