• Karen A Wohlheiter and Lynnda M Dahlquist.
• Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, MD, USA. wohlheiterk@email.chop.edu
• J Pediatr Psychol. 2013 Mar 1;38(2):202-12.

ObjectiveTo examine whether age and developmental differences in selective attention influence young children's differential responses to interactive and passive distraction.Methods65 3- to 6-year-old children underwent three cold-pressor trials while receiving no intervention, playing a video game (interactive distraction), or watching a video game (passive distraction). In addition, children completed a test of selective attention, and parents completed ratings of attention.ResultsConsistent with neurocognitive models of pain, children benefited more from interactive distraction than from passive distraction. Although older children demonstrated superior pain tolerance overall, age and selective attention skills did not moderate children's responses to the distraction intervention.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that younger preschoolers can benefit from interactive distraction to manage acute pain, provided that the distraction activity is developmentally appropriate. Research is needed to determine whether developmental issues are more important moderators of children's responses to distraction when faced with more challenging task demands.

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