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Developmental Trajectories in Primary Schoolchildren Using n-Back Task
López-Vicente, M., Forns Guzman, J., Suades-González, E., Esnaola, M., Garcia-Esteban, R., Álvarez-Pedrero, M., Júlvez, J., Burgaleta, M., Sebastián-Gallés , N., & Sunyer, J. (2016). Developmental Trajectories in Primary Schoolchildren Using n-Back Task. Frontiers in Psychology, 7(MAY), e716. Article 716. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00716
Results: We observed improvements related to age in n-back outcomes d′, HRT and accuracy, as well as reduced cognitive growth at older ages in d′ and HRT. Greater improvements in performance were observed at younger ages, in 2-back, in verbal rather than numerical stimuli and in girls compared to boys. Boys responded faster at baseline, while girls showed increased growth in 2-back numbers. Children with ADHD (Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder) symptoms (15% of boys and 6% of girls) had a lower working memory at baseline, but they showed similar cognitive growth trajectories in numbers variants of the task, as compared to children without ADHD symptoms. However, the age-related improvement in response speed was not observed in children with ADHD symptoms.
Conclusions: Changes in n-back outcomes reflected developmental trajectories in 1-year follow-up. The present results suggest that the repeated administration of this task can be used to study the factors that may alter the cognitive development during childhood.