Development of sustained, focused attention in young children during free play.

Ruff, Holly A., Lawson, Katharine R.·1990·Developmental Psychology
DOI 10.1037//0012-1649.26.1.85

Abstract

The purpose of this project was to investigate the maintenance of focused attention in the first 5 years. In Study 1,67 children were seen at 1, 2 and 3.5 years of age in free play with a number ofage-appropriate toys. In Study 2, children at 2.5, 3.5, and 4.5 years were also seen in free play

Cited by (10)

  1. Executive function in preschoolers: A review using an integrative framework.
    Garon, Nancy, Bryson, Susan E., Smith, Isabel M. · 2008 · Psychological Bulletin
  2. Sleep, cognition, and behavioral problems in school-age children: a century of research meta-analyzed.
    Astill, Rebecca G., Van der Heijden, Kristiaan B., Van IJzendoorn, Marinus H., Van Someren, Eus J. W. · 2012 · Psychological Bulletin
  3. The Development of Visual Attention in Infancy
    Colombo, John · 2001 · Annual Review of Psychology
  4. Development of Executive Function and Attention in Preterm Children: A Systematic Review
    Mulder, Hanna, Pitchford, Nicola J., Hagger, Martin S., Marlow, Neil · 2009 · Developmental Neuropsychology
  5. Differential effect of intrauterine growth restriction on childhood neurodevelopment: a systematic review
    Murray, E, Fernandes, M, Fazel, M, Kennedy, SH, Villar, J, Stein, A · 2015 · BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology

See all 283

How to cite

Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.

This page
CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Development of sustained, focused attention in young children during free play. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1037//0012-1649.26.1.85
The paper
Ruff, H. A., & Lawson, K. R. (1990). Development of sustained, focused attention in young children during free play. Developmental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037//0012-1649.26.1.85

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.