Avaliação do desenvolvimento do controle inibitório em crianças de 6 a 8 anos

Abstract

Empirical data observed in normative populations suggest that the inhibitory behavior, regulated by the executive functions, has specific maturational characteristics throughout the human development. The present study aimed to evaluate the inhibitory control of 130 children aged six to eight years old in two computerized tasks (Go/No-go and the Stroop sunmoon task). Reaction time (RT) and the average percentage of the number of errors committed (co-omissions and omissions) were analyzed by ANOVA for repeated measures. The empirical data of this research shows that children of six years had slower performance and made more errors when compared with children of eight years, and in the second experiment was also found difference between children of seven and eight years old. These findings corroborate other studies that also discuss differences between the ages investigated in the Go/No-go and the Stroop tasks. Overall, there were no significant differences to the gender factor in both experimental vidence. The data suggests a maturation of attentional and inhibitory control between the age groups studied and points to future researches analyze other stages of human development.