No abstract

The School Achievement Test (Teste de Desempenho Escolar, TDE) has been widely used in clinical and educational contexts for the past 22 years. Arithmetic disorders are frequent among children and teenagers, requiring new and updated tasks to assess as accurately as possible school achievement. The last decade has witnessed a growing recognition of the need for significant changes in educational assessment practices. Evidence provided by item response theory (IRT) enabled the link of more detailed information improving assessment quality. The aim of this study was to develop a revised and completely updated version of the Arithmetic Subtest for the School Achievement Test-Second Edition (Teste de Desempenho Escolar-Segunda Edição, TDE-II). To this end, two studies were conducted. The first study focused on item and test construction, while the second study assessed the preliminary version of the instrument. The sample consisted of 302 students in grades 1 through 9 recruited from public and private schools. Factor analysis revealed two factors which explained 74 % of the variance in the data. Both dimensions were closely related to item complexity and difficulty. The subtest was therefore divided into two versions: one for students in grades 1 through 5 and the other for those in grades 6 through 9. Both versions were analyzed based on IRT models, which suggested that the items provided a comprehensive measure of the latent trait. The results provided satisfactory evidence of internal structure and reliability. Results indicated that the Arithmetic Subtest of the TDE-II has adequate psychometric properties for the assessment of arithmetic skills in primary education. Interpretation based on IRT analyses can be helpful for future studies about math education, discriminating even better between learning difficulty and typical groups, with the data to be the basis of math cognition stimulation programs.

Cognitive development in children presents peculiarities according to groups of age, gender, and type of school. Few studies have been investigating the effects of all these factors. The aim of this study was to investigate the main effects and the interactions of age, gender, and type of school in 419 children from ages 6 to 12 years old evaluated by the Child Brief Neuropsychological Assessment Battery (NEUPSILIN-Inf). Older children, children in private schools and girls presented better results. Interactions between all three independent variables were observed in different cognitive domains. The results highlight both the heterogeneity and the influence of multiple factors in children's neuropsychological development.

This study aimed to analyze whether there are differences between bilingual (Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish) and monolingual (Brazilian Portuguese) school children regarding reading and writing learning achievement, in executive functions (EF) components and metalinguistic abilities. Twenty-three bilingual and 23 monolingual children, aged 6 to 8 years, were assessed in terms of their writing, reading, and metalinguistic abilities, and with verbal and non-verbal tasks testing EF. A bilingual advantage was observed in reading and writing abilities and in 16 of the 44 EF measures, including subcomponents of working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and executive attention, mainly in non-verbal paradigms, while monolingual children outperformed bilingual ones in three scores: counting errors (Five Digits Test), omission of bells (Bells test) and sequential trial B (Trail Making Test). There were moderate and weak effect sizes in metalinguistic subcomponents showing bilingual advantage. Literacy improvement seems to have the potential to increase linguistic and cognitive abilities.

Este estudo buscou verificar se há relação entre atenção (seletiva e sustentada visual) e o desempenho escolar (leitura, escrita e aritmética). Foram avaliados 258 estudantes do 1º a 9º ano do ensino fundamental de escolas brasileiras públicas e privadas, com idade média de 10,33 anos (DP=2,52). Os estudantes foram avaliados pelo Teste de Cancelamento do Sinos-Versão Infantil (TCS) e pelo Teste de Desempenho Escolar-Segunda Edição (TDE-II). Os escores dos testes foram correlacionados pelo coeficiente de correlação de Pearson, considerando o nível de significância de p≤0,05. Houve correlações significativas positivas de intensidade fraca entre os escores totais do TCS e TDE-II e correlação negativas significativas de intensidade fraca entre os escores de erros e omissões do TCS e escores totais do TDE-II. Foi possível observar relação entre os construtos estudados, porém sugere-se que investigações futuras utilizem diferentes métodos para avaliar outras habilidades relacionadas ao desempenho escolar e processos atencionais. Palavras-chave: atenção; desempenho escolar; leitura; escrita; aritmética. ABSTRACT-Relationship between Attention and Performance in Reading, Writing and Arithmetic in Children This study sought to verify the relationship between attention (selective and sustained visual) and school performance (reading, writing and arithmetic). We evaluated 258 students from the 1st to the 9th year of elementary school in Brazilian public and private schools, with a mean age of 10.33 years (SD=2.52). The students were evaluated by the Bells Test-children's version (BT) and by the School Performance Test-second edition (SPT-II). Test scores were correlated by the Pearson correlation coefficient, considering the level of significance of p<0.05. There were significant positive correlations of weak intensity between BT and SPT-II total scores and significant negative correlation of weak intensity between BT errors and omission scores and total SPT-II scores. An observable relationship between the constructs studied exists; however, it is suggested that future investigations use different methods to evaluate other skills related to school performance and attentional processes.