The overall goals of the proposed research are to investigate the development of sustained attention in infants and preschool children, to assess the extent to which there are stable individual differences, and to develop measures of attention that will be of use in both basic and clinical research. In addition to a currently funded longitudinal study of attention and impulse control, four projects are proposed. Two concern different types of sustained attention: 1) attention maintained for the purpose of acquiring information or solving a problem; and 2) attention maintained in anticipation of an event about to occur, that is, vigilance. These two projects involve infants and preschoolers, respectively, but both deal with the relationship of the two kinds of attention to each other, their resistance to distraction, and the issue of individual differences and continuity. Both of these projects build on previous work, but also require the development of new procedures for studying attention. Specifically, these new procedures include an analogue of vigilance tasks, now used with older children, for use with infants in the second half of the first year, and a downward extension of the continuous performance test for use with children as young as two years. The other two projects are clinical investigations that use measures of attention as outcome variables. One is a study of the effects of treatment on brain function and behavior in moderately lead intoxicated children; the other is a study of the consequences of neonatal brain dysfunction on specific aspects of cognitive development. All of the proposed studies should lead to theoretical advances in our understanding of attentional control and to clinically useful techniques for the study of early deviations in attention.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Research Scientist Development Award - Research (K02)
Project #
5K02MH000652-04
Application #
3070053
Study Section
Research Scientist Development Review Committee (MHK)
Project Start
1987-02-01
Project End
1992-01-31
Budget Start
1990-02-01
Budget End
1991-01-31
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
1990
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Department
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
009095365
City
Bronx
State
NY
Country
United States
Zip Code
10461
Ruff, H A; Capozzoli, M; Weissberg, R (1998) Age, individuality, and context as factors in sustained visual attention during the preschool years. Dev Psychol 34:454-64
Ruff, H A; Markowitz, M E; Bijur, P E et al. (1996) Relationships among blood lead levels, iron deficiency, and cognitive development in two-year-old children. Environ Health Perspect 104:180-5
Ruff, H A; Bijur, P E; Markowitz, M et al. (1993) Declining blood lead levels and cognitive changes in moderately lead-poisoned children. JAMA 269:1641-6
Ruff, H A; Lawson, K R; Parrinello, R et al. (1990) Long-term stability of individual differences in sustained attention in the early years. Child Dev 61:60-75
Weissberg, R; Ruff, H A; Lawson, K R (1990) The usefulness of reaction time tasks in studying attention and organization of behavior in young children. J Dev Behav Pediatr 11:59-64
Ruff, H A (1989) The infant's use of visual and haptic information in the perception and recognition of objects. Can J Psychol 43:302-19
Ruff, H A; Bijur, P E (1989) The effects of low to moderate lead levels on neurobehavioral functioning in children: toward a conceptual model. J Dev Behav Pediatr 10:103-9
Parrinello, R M; Ruff, H A (1988) The influence of adult intervention on infants' level of attention. Child Dev 59:1125-35