Comparison of Attentional Abilities of Preschool Children Aged 5 to 7 Years

The purpose of this study was to investigate the evolution of the types of attention in preschool children aged 5 to 7 years.
In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 200 preschool children (100 girls and 100 boys) aged between 5 and 7 were selected through random cluster sampling from the city of Tabriz, Iran, in 2016. To determine the evolution process of the types of attention, the test developed by Hafezi et al. (2016) was employed and the data analysis was carried out using a two-way ANOVA.
The results showed that the scores of the attention in girls and boys were increased with regard to age except for auditory, Selective, divided, focused and Total score of attention. In terms of both genders, except for flexible, selective and divided attention, other types of attention showed meaningful differences between boys and girls. With the exception of selective, divided and Centralized attention, there was a significant interaction between genders and age in other types of attention (p≤0.05).
Attention in preschool children aged 5 to 7 years has complex dimensions of evolution, which necessitates further studies.