T.O.V.A.s. The Tests of Variables of Attention are objective, standardized, and highly accurate continuous performance tests (CPTs) that are used to assess attention. The T.O.V.A. is the visual version, and the T.O.V.A.-A. is the auditory version. They are non-language based, sufficiently long (21.6 minutes) computerized tests that require no left-right discrimination or sequencing and have no appreciable practice effects. Responses are recorded with a specially designed, highly accurate electronic microswitch.

Test of Everyday Attention for Children (TEA-Ch) The Test of Everyday Attention for Children is a standardized and normed clinical battery of tests for children that allows for relative assessment across different attentional capacities. The subtests of the TEA-Ch are as follows:

Sky Search: selective/focused attention This is a brief, timed subtest. Children have to find as many `target' spaceships as possible on a sheet filled with very similar distractor spaceships. In the second part of the task there are no distractors. Subtracting part 2 from part 1 gives a measure of a child's ability to make this selection that is relatively free from the influence of motor slowness.

Score!: sustained attention Children have to keep a count of the number of `scoring' sounds they hear on a tape, as if they were keeping the score on a computer game across several trials.

Creature Counting: attentional control/switching Children have to repeatedly switch between two relatively simple activities of counting upwards and counting downwards. They are asked to count aliens in their burrow, with occasional arrows telling them to change the direction in which they are counting. Time taken and accuracy are scored in this subtest.

Sky Search DT: sustained-divided attention Children are asked to combine the two tasks of finding spaceships (Sky Search) and keeping a count of scoring sounds (Score!). Some children show a substantial decrement in performance under the dual task condition; others may improve or stay the same.

Map Mission: selective/focused attention Children have to search a map to find as many target symbols as they can in one minute.

Score DT: sustained attention This subtest combines the sustained attention task of counting scoring sounds with another task involving listening for an animal name that will occur at some stage during a spoken new report.

Walk, Don't Walk: sustained attention/response inhibition Children are asked to take one step along a paper path, using a pen, after each tone they hear on a tape. Unpredictably one tone ends differently than the rest, signaling the child to stop. The test measures whether or not the child is able to stop responding when the signal occurs or is `carried away' into a tak driven `automatic' style of responding.

Opposite Worlds: attentional control/switching In the Same World, children follow a path naming the digits 1 and 2 that are scattered along it. In the Opposite World, the same type of task is presented except the child must now say `one' when they see a 2 and `two' when they see a 1. The speed with which the child can perform the cognitive reversal is the crucial measure. more