Sustained attention to response task performance trajectories in Down syndrome

Background Sustained attention (SA) has been reported to be a unitary construct in youth with Down syndrome (DS), but additional analyses of how auditory and visual SA change over task presentation time are warranted. Method The current study was a secondary data analysis employing multilevel modeling. Specifically, we compared auditory and visual sustained attention to response task (SART) performance trajectories within a group of 42 youth with DS aged 10 to 22 years. Results We found that auditory omission errors increased at a faster rate than visual omission errors over increasing SART block presentations in youth with DS. Conclusions Youth with DS experience more SA lapses over time in the auditory than visual modality. Results have implications for academic instruction and assessment.