Mind wandering in children: Examining task-unrelated thoughts in computerized tasks and a classroom lesson, and the association with different executive functions

Keulers, Esther H. H.; Jonkman, Lisa M.

doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2018.11.013

Cited by 29 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…68 ). As certain subtypes of spontaneous cognitive processes are detectable in time-varying functional connectivity measurements 68 , it could be hypothesized that part of our results might pertain to the age-related changes in the occurrence of mind wandering episodes and in the content/type of spontaneous cognitive processes observed from childhood to young adulthood and from young to late adulthood 63,[69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77] . Further studies should investigate this critical issue.…”

Section: Results Of Static Rsfc Analyses Are In Line With Previous Stmentioning

confidence: 95%

Changes in electrophysiological static and dynamic human brain functional architecture from childhood to late adulthood

Coquelet

Wens

Mary

et al. 2020

Preprint

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This magnetoencephalography study aimed at characterizing age-related changes in resting-state functional brain organization from mid-childhood to late adulthood. We investigated neuromagnetic brain activity at rest in 105 participants divided into three age groups: children (6-9 years), young adults (18-34 years) and healthy elders (53-78 years). The effects of age on static resting-state functional integration were assessed using band-limited power envelope correlation, whereas those on transient functional dynamics were disclosed using hidden Markov modeling of power envelope activity. Brain development from childhood to adulthood came with (i) a strengthening of functional integration within and between resting-state networks and (ii) an increased temporal stability of transient (100-300 ms lifetime) and recurrent states of network activation or deactivation mainly encompassing lateral or medial associative neocortical areas. Healthy aging was characterized by decreased static resting-state functional integration and dynamical stability within the visual network. These results based on electrophysiological measurements free of neurovascular biases suggest that functional brain integration mainly evolves during brain development, with limited changes in healthy aging.These novel electrophysiological insights into human brain functional architecture across the lifespan pave the way for future clinical studies investigating how brain disorders affect brain development or healthy aging.

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Section: Results Of Static Rsfc Analyses Are In Line With Previous Stmentioning

confidence: 95%

Changes in electrophysiological static and dynamic human brain functional architecture from childhood to late adulthood

Coquelet

Wens

Mary

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…Although there is a growing literature on MW in adults, there are few studies of MW during childhood and only one on childhood ADHD. The few studies in typically developing children showed that children aged 8–12 years were able to report MW in a valid way (Keulers & Jonkman, ; Mrazek et al , ; Ye, Song, Zhang, & Wang, ). In these studies, elevated MW was related to measures of lower executive control, poor reading comprehension and reduced well‐being (Keulers & Jonkman, ; Mrazek et al , ; Ye et al , ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The few studies in typically developing children showed that children aged 8–12 years were able to report MW in a valid way (Keulers & Jonkman, ; Mrazek et al , ; Ye, Song, Zhang, & Wang, ). In these studies, elevated MW was related to measures of lower executive control, poor reading comprehension and reduced well‐being (Keulers & Jonkman, ; Mrazek et al , ; Ye et al , ). In the only previous study on MW in children with ADHD, MW was found to be elevated during task performance in medicated children, whilst mind blanking was elevated in un‐medicated children with ADHD (Van den Driessche et al , ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We evaluated the psychometric properties of the MEWS and examined scores on the MEWS in relation to ADHD symptoms and diagnosis, and cognitive, emotional, and academic functioning. We hypothesized, based on findings in typically developing children and adult populations, that MW would be positively related to ADHD symptoms, would be a good predictor of ADHD diagnosis and contribute independently to cognitive, emotional and academic functioning beyond core ADHD symptoms (Keulers & Jonkman, ; Mowlem et al , ; Weyandt et al , ; Ye et al , ).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Mind‐wandering in children with and without ADHD

Frick

Asherson²,

Brocki

2019

British J Clinic Psychol

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Objectives. Mind-wandering (MW) is a commonly experienced phenomenon, characterized by focus of attention drifting away from the present situation to intrinsically originated thoughts. Studies in adults show that MW is related to ADHD symptoms, but this association is understudied in children. We set out to investigate the associations of MW in children with and without ADHD and to simultaneously validate the self-report Mind Excessively Wandering Scale (MEWS) in children.Design. We used a cross-sectional, correlational, design to examine the research questions.Methods. The sample consisted of 82 children (61 boys) aged 8-13 years (m = 10.46), of which 35 had a diagnosis of ADHD. Children rated MW; parents and teachers rated ADHD symptoms, emotion regulation and academic achievement. Working memory was assessed with Digit Span.Results. MW was positively related to ADHD symptoms, and the MEWS could differentiate between cases and controls with a sensitivity of 0.71 and specificity of 0.81. Psychometric properties of the MEWS were satisfactory. In addition, MW contributed independently to working memory (R 2 D = .05, p = .01) and emotion regulation (R 2 D = .04, p = .04) beyond ADHD symptoms.Conclusions. MW is elevated in children with ADHD and contributes to functional domains. The MEWS is a valid tool for assessing MW in children, and the results are mostly comparable to that of adults (Mowlem et al., 2016, Journal of Attention Disorders, 23, 624), suggesting a similar relationship of MW to ADHD across the lifespan. Practitioner pointsSpontaneous mind-wandering is elevated in children with ADHD compared to children without a diagnosis. Elevated spontaneous mind-wandering predicts lower working memory, emotion regulation and academic achievement beyond ADHD symptoms, IQ and socio-economic status. Clinicians should consider evaluating excessive spontaneous mind-wandering and targeting it as an important outcome when treating children with ADHD. The MEWS is a valid tool for assessing excessive mind-wandering in children.

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“…These same ideas could be used to examine individual differences in cognitive development; that is, some developmental variation could be due to variation in intensity (Chevalier, 2018), and other developmental variation could be due to variation in consistency (Keulers & Jonkman, 2019), in addition to differences in types of control. For example, some children could perform poorly on an attention-control task because they have specific deficits in the type of control engaged (e.g., conflict resolution).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual Differences in the Intensity and Consistency of Attention

Unsworth

Miller

2021

Curr Dir Psychol Sci

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Individual differences in attention abilities predict performance in a number of domains. We suggest that two aspects of attention are especially important for variation in attention abilities: intensity and consistency. We review evidence suggesting that individual differences in the amount of attention allocated to a task (intensity) and how consistently attention is allocated to a task (consistency) are related to each other and to overall task performance. We suggest that a number of factors (e.g., capacity, arousal, regulation, motivation) drive variation in intensity and consistency and demonstrate that these two aspects of attention are important in accounting for variation in working memory, learning, and preparatory control. Examining individual differences in both intensity and consistency will be important in order to understand variation in attention abilities in and out of the laboratory.

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Mind wandering in children: Examining task-unrelated thoughts in computerized tasks and a classroom lesson, and the association with different executive functions

Cited by 29 publications

References 56 publications

Changes in electrophysiological static and dynamic human brain functional architecture from childhood to late adulthood

Changes in electrophysiological static and dynamic human brain functional architecture from childhood to late adulthood

Mind‐wandering in children with and without ADHD

Individual Differences in the Intensity and Consistency of Attention

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