The relationship between attention and achievement in reading and numeracy

The well established link between behavioural problems and academic underachievement (Hinshaw, 1992) has resulted in research aimed at identifying which type of behavioural difficulties are correlates of underachievement. Inattention has consistently been shown to be a major factor in reading difficulties as well as being linked to poor performance in other academic areas. This suggests that investigations of children's achievement may benefit from including an assessment of their attentional abilities aimed at identifying the kinds of attentional problems that are associated with underachievement. This review considers some of the difficulties of defining attention and outlines some approaches to its measurement. The broad consensus among researchers is that attention is not a single cognitive function. Aspects of attention that have received the greatest research and clinical interest are selective attention, sustained attention, divided attention and attentional switching. The main approaches to assessing attention are rating scales, generally by teachers or parents, and cognitive tests, which raise different issues of validity. Studies are needed to compare these different assessment methods and to see which methods best assess different aspects of attention. Future research could also look at sex differences in attentional abilities and their relationship to different patterns of achievement in boys and girls across subject areas.