A longitudinal factor analytic study of children’s neurocognitive abilities

Abstract

The neurocognitive abilities of 503 Portuguese children aged 8–11.9 years at onset of the study were assessed annually for 8 years in 3 functional domains: memory,motor and visual motor functions, and attention. A series of exploratory principal axis factor analyses, with varimax rotation, revealed seven factors: Divided Attention, Selective Attention, Verbal Learning and Recall, Visual Learning and Recall, Motor Speed, Visual-Motor Speed, andWorkingMemory. The same factors emerged across the 8-year period, suggesting that children’s neurocognitive structures are articulated and stable throughout this period of development. From these exploratory analyses a small set of cost-effective neuropsychological tests were found to characterize children’s functioning consistently throughout the 8-year period.