Attention network training promotes selective attention of children with low socioeconomic status

The objectives of this study were to evaluate the difference of selective attention efficiency between children with low and high socioeconomic status (SES) and the promotional effect of attention network training (an attention network test was used as the training task) on selective attention in children with the low SES. A total of 13910- to 12-year-old children participated in two experiments (71 in Experiment 1 and 68 in Experiment 2). The results suggest that selective attention and switch ability of children with high SES are better than those of children with low SES. After attention network training, selective attention, switch ability, and working memory of low-SES children improved significantly. The findings provide evidence that attention network training could enhance selective attention in low-SES children and that the beneficial training effect could also transfer to switch ability and working memory. The research may provide a promising method to compensate cognitive delay of low-SES children.(c) 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study aimed to evaluate the difference in selective attention efficiency between children with low and high socioeconomic status (SES) and investigate the promotional effect of attention network training on selective attention in low-SES children. The results showed that high-SES children exhibited better selective attention and switch ability compared to low-SES children. After attention network training, significant improvements were observed in selective attention, switch ability, and working memory in low-SES children.