GENDER DIFFERENCES IN PLANNING, ATTENTION, SIMULTANEOUS, AND SUCCESSIVE (PASS) COGNITIVE-PROCESSES

Gender differences on academic and intelligence tests have been the focus of a large body of literature that has often left basic questions unanswered. Recently, researchers have suggested that sex-related differences be examined from a theoretical view of ability related to neurological models of cognitive functioning. This study applied the planning, attention, simultaneous. successive (PASS) cognitive processing model, based on the neuropsychological work of A. R. Luria (1973), to the study of gender differences for 3 samples of boys and girls. Girls significantly outperformed boys on attention tasks at Grade 3 (n = 67) and on planning tests at Grade 6 (n = 66). These findings suggest that the PASS model offers a viable approach to the conceptualization of cognitive processes that may prove especially useful in understanding sex-related differences in cognitive and academic performance.