Attention is a cognitive ability that allows a learner to concentrate on pertinent stimuli or information. Sustained/focused Attention refers to focus on a specific task without being distracted. Selective Attention refers to the ability to select relevant information while ignoring irrelevant information and is tightly coupled with inhibitory control.
Deficits in both visual and auditory selective Attention have been associated with reading disabilities (Stevens et al., 2012).
Sustained Attention is an important component for literacy success because it can help students attend to classroom instruction. Evidence suggests that visual selective Attention is also an important skill for learning to read and that training auditory selective Attention processes can enhance early literacy skills.
There are conflicting findings in this area with some researchers finding evidence that a deficit in visual Attention is associated with a diagnosis of dyslexia. This theory would predict a deficit of visual Attention for both letter strings and non-alphanumeric symbol strings. However, other researchers attribute differences in visual Attention tasks in this population to a deficit in symbol-sound mapping. According to these studies, individuals with dyslexia only have visual Attention deficits in letter strings. This research is summarized below:
Auditory Processing refers to the interpretation of sounds as meaningful input through the discrimination, recognition, and comprehension of auditory information. Difficulties with Auditory Processing can occur even when there are no hearing impairments.
Auditory Processing is essential for speech perception and therefore is an important component in oral language development, particularly developing Phonological Awareness. Children who have Auditory Processing impairments may have difficulty developing Phonological Awareness skills, which can negatively impact literacy learning.
Inhibition (also called executive control or cognitive control) is an executive function skill that begins to develop around age 3 or 4 (Barkley, 1997, 2003) and continues to develop throughout adolescence. It involves suppressing attention to irrelevant stimuli in order to focus on pertinent stimuli/information. Inhibition occurs at the behavioral (controlling responses) and cognitive levels. Behavioral and cognitive Inhibition are tightly coupled, as a lack of cognitive Inhibition often results in a lack of behavioral Inhibition (Altemeier, Abbott, & Berninger, 2008). There is evidence that Inhibition affects early literacy skills (Kegel, van der Kooy-Hofland, & Bus, 2009). Moreover, it is an important component of behavioral- and Self-Regulation (McClelland, Cameron, Connor, Farris, Jewkes & Morrison, 2007). Also, Inhibition is believed to affect Long-term Memory at the encoding and retrieval stages (de Ribaupierre, 2002) by allowing phonological codes for letters to be retrieved efficiently by suppressing incorrect codes
Information can be stored in Long-term Memory indefinitely, which distinguishes Long-term Memory from Short-term and Working Memory, which store information temporarily. When memories stored in Short-term Memory are consolidated through rehearsal of information, they become part of Long-term Memory. The central executive component of Working Memory is believed to control and regulate the temporary activation of information stored in Long-term Memory (Baddeley, 1998).
Long-term Memory can be divided into explicit memory and implicit memory:
Sensory Integration is the process of receiving, processing, and organizing multiple sources of sensory information from the environment then transforming that information into an appropriate response. Sensory overload can occur when the body’s senses (e.g., touch, hearing, taste) are overly stimulated. People who have sensory processing disorders frequently experience sensory overload which causes discomfort. Some symptoms of sensory overload include irritability, avoiding touch, and withdrawing from participating in activities. Sensory Integration difficulties are associated with lower participation in school activities, struggles with peer relationships, social withdrawal, and getting inadequate Sleep (Koenig & Rudney, 2010). These can lead to difficulties with successful learning, including learning to read.
The neurological threshold for sensory information and the behavioral response can vary:
Some basic patterns of Sensory Integration include:
Children who are hyposensitive to sensory stimuli may seek out higher levels of sensory input (e.g., requiring noise to be louder or needing more light). Children who are hypersensitive to sensory stimuli may experience sensory overload where senses are overstimulated, causing them to be irritable, withdraw from activities, and/or avoid touch. Some children may show a mixture of sensory seeking and sensory avoidance.
Short-term Memory refers to the ability to hold information in memory for a short period of time. Unlike Working Memory, it does not refer to manipulating or inferring information. Rather, in Short-term Memory tasks, participants are asked to repeat the material of interest in the same order as it was presented.
Speed of Processing is an important factor in the development of reading skills because it helps students process many different types of information quickly and efficiently. Speed of Processing is the rate that information is perceived, processed, and an appropriate response is formulated.
Speed of Processing influences:
Speed of information processing is important in any task that requires processing different types of stimuli (Shaul & Nevo, 2015). Having a higher Speed of Processing is associated with increased Working Memory capacity and enhanced Verbal Reasoning skills, as well as a higher intelligence (Fry & Hale, 1996; Kail, 2007; Sheppard & Vernon, 2008). Working Memory is reliant on Speed of Processing because a faster processing speed will result in faster rehearsal (Leonard et al., 2007).
Visual Processing refers to the interpretation of visual stimuli. Visual Processing is important for reading skills because it contributes to reading speed and accuracy.
Visual Processing involves several different skills, including:
Visual selective attention is an important component in reading since reading requires visual information processing. Deficits in visual attention have been associated with dyslexia, which is an impairment of reading acquisition. However, some researchers have not found a link between a deficit in general Visual Processing and dyslexia (e.g., Ziegler et al., 2010), rather they have found deficits in visual attention to letter strings but not non-alphanumeric stimuli. These researchers attribute the deficit in dyslexia to a deficit in symbol-sound mapping rather than a deficit in visual attentional processing.
Bosse and colleagues (2015) investigated the relationship between Visual Processing skills and orthographic learning in a group of French children (n = 88) in the 3rd to 5th grades. They examined the acquisition of orthographic knowledge using pseudowords. Gaining orthographic knowledge (Alphabet Knowledge) was aided by the ability to process an entire string of letters at once. Also, they discussed that Decoding depends on the successful mapping of visual input to phonological information.
There are conflicting findings in this area, with some researchers finding evidence that a deficit in visual attention is associated with a diagnosis of dyslexia. This theory would predict a deficit of visual attention for both letter strings and non-alphanumeric symbol strings. However, other researchers attribute differences in visual attention tasks in this population to a deficit in symbol-sound mapping. According to these studies, individuals with dyslexia only have visual attention deficits in letter strings. It should be noted that, historically, dyslexia has been incorrectly described as a vision problem, when it is actually due to processing difficulties. Scientists continue to conduct research to describe and understand these processing difficulties in more detail. Research examining Visual Processing differences in children with dyslexia is summarized below:
Below is research investigating the relationship between Visual Processing and reading skills
Visual-motor integration is another important area of research. Visual-motor integration skills allow eyes and hands to work together in an organized and coordinated manner, and it relies on both visual spatial discrimination and motor skills. Many studies have found a relationship between visual perception and academic performance (Feagans & Merriwether, 1990; Kulp, 1999; Rosner & Rosner, 1987). However it should be noted that the field of research examining the relationship between visual function and academic performance is controversial (see Lack, 2010, for a review). Yet since a good amount of research exists suggesting Vision is an important factor in academic performance, that literature will be discussed briefly here.
Working Memory is a type of memory that allows a person to temporarily hold and manipulate information for use in many complex cognitive processes. Although there are several models of Working Memory, one of the earliest and best known is Baddeley’s Working Memory Model (Baddeley, 1986, 2000).
This model consists of a central executive and three “slave” systems, including the visuospatial sketchpad, the phonological loop, and the episodic buffer. The central executive is responsible for directing the activities of these three systems and is responsible for shifting and focusing attention to these three components. It is thought to have a limited capacity. The visuospatial sketchpad processes visuospatial information and has both storage and rehearsal components, while the phonological loop processes phonological encoding and rehearsal. The episodic buffer is the least well-understood system and is responsible for linking visual, spatial, and verbal information, as well as allowing Long-term Memory to interact with the other components of the model. This model describes a reciprocal relationship between Working Memory (fluid systems) and Long-term Memory (crystallized systems).
Working Memory is likely required for retaining information during reading and manipulating words within a sentence or passage to understand how they all relate to one another. A low Working Memory span may result in less capacity to integrate information from the text with information in Long-term Memory (Background Knowledge). Children with weaker Working Memory skills may appear to have a poor attention span and be easily distracted; however, they do not engage in hyperactive/impulsive behavior that is more characteristic of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
The skilled readers performed better than all of the less skilled reader groups on measures of Speed of Processing and Working Memory updating (monitoring and coding information to determine if it is relevant to the task at hand). Children in Group 2 outperformed children in Group 1 on measures of Working Memory, Short-term Memory, Speed of Processing, and phonological processing. The children in Group 3 outperformed children in Group 1 on measures of Working Memory and phonological processing. The authors concluded that the difference between skilled and less skilled readers could partially be explained by variations in Working Memory skills. They also concluded that Short-term Memory and updating contributed to differences in Working Memory.
Learner Variability Project