Evaluating gender differences with experimental planning, attention, simultaneous and successive neuropsychological tasks in participants with and without learning disabilities

The purpose of this study was to investigate gender-processing differences in Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive Processing (PASS) abilities using experimental tasks that related to the PASS cognitive processing theory. The PASS theory is a neuropsychological-based theory of cognitive processing that has theoretical underpinnings in the anatomy of the brain. Volunteer college students were used in this study to examine if gender processing differences, especially Attention and Planning, which have been found in children in earlier studies, persist into adulthood. A Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was used to investigate the gender processing differences in a group of participants without LD and the group of participants with LD, as well as to draw inferences about the differences between the two groups of participants. The results indicated that there were no significant gender differences in broad measures of Planning, Attention, Simultaneous or Successive processing between male participants and female participants with LD, or male participants and female participants without LD. There was a borderline significant finding that indicated female participants outperformed male participants without LD in Attention at the .058 level. Many significant differences were found when the male and female participants were compared across groups with and without LD. Repeated Measures MANOVA revealed that there were no ipsative differences among the profiles for male or female participants, with or without LD.; It is possible that the superiority that females display in Planning and Attention abilities through age 17 in earlier studies may be function of earlier onset of puberty resulting in earlier frontal lobe development than is seen in male participants. Since adult males appear to reach virtual equality with adult females in the area of Planning, and to some degree Attention, inferences can be drawn about the development of the brain and related executive functions. Additional conclusions can be reached regarding the utility and validity of these experimental tasks. These results have implications for school psychology, neuropsychology, psychoeducational assessment for intervention, and neurodevelopmental theory. The results of this study should spur further interest in differences in executive functioning and the neuropsychological examination of intelligence and cognitive processing.