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Exposure to Lead and Specific Attentional Problems in Schoolchildren

Barbara Minder is a junior investigator in the Department of Physiological Psychology at Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam. This article is part of her PhD thesis, which is in the area of behavioral toxicology. Address: Barbara Minder, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, DeBoelelaan 1111, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Edith A. Das-Smaal

Edith A. Das-Smaal is an assistant professor in cognitive psychology and a senior investigator at Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam. She is cosupervising several research projects on attention and attentional deficits.

Eddy F. J. M. Brand

Eddy F. J. M. Brand is a research assistant and PhD candidate at Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam, working on a thesis on the measurement of different types of attentional deficits.

Jacob F. Orlebeke

Jacob F. Orlebeke is a professor of physiological psychology at Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam, cosupervising several projects in the areas of stress, behavior genetics, attention, and attentional deficits.

A pilot study was carried out to investigate the relationship between exposure to lead and attention in children. The participants were 43 boys, 8 to 12 years of age, attending special schools for children with educational and/or learning problems (so called LOM schools). Children with probable causes of attentional or memory problems other than lead contamination were excluded from the study. Various aspects of attention were measured using neuropsychological tests. As an assessment of body lead burden, lead concentration in the boys' hair was measured by means of the Synchrotron Radiation-Induced X-ray Fluorescence technique (SXRF). Information was collected about variables that possibly could influence attention and/or body lead burden (confounding factors). A multiple regression analysis was used to determine the contribution of lead to variance in performance, after correction for confounding factors. The results showed that children with relatively high concentrations of lead in their hair reacted significantly slower in a simple reaction-time task than did children with relatively low concentrations of lead in their hair. In addition, the former were significantly less flexible in changing their focus of attention, even after correction for the influence of their delayed reaction time.

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