Development of attention functions in 5- to 11-year-old Arab children as measured by the German Test Battery of Attention Performance (KITAP): A pilot study from Syria

We administered the German Test-battery of Attention Performance (KITAP) to Arab children living in Syria (N=143, 5-11 years) in order to assess the influence of age and gender on different dimensions of attention. The results demonstrate the validity of cross-cultural application of KITAP with Syrian school-aged children. The influence of age was more evident on speed of performance than on quality of performance, with rapid, general improvement until the age of 9 years. Some attention functions like alertness and inhibitory control seemed to be developed earlier than other functions like, flexibility, distractibility, and divided attention. Gender-related differences were observed in some subtests: Boys had faster reaction times but made more errors than girls. Interestingly, Arab-Syrian children showed better performance on some attention tests compared with German norms. The present study provides support for the use of cross-cultural studies for better understanding of the development of attention in school-aged children.