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

Gender differences on academic and intelligence tests have been the fo cus of a large body of literature that has often left basic questions unanswered. Recently, researchers have suggested that sex-related diff erences be examined from a theoretical view of ability related to neur ological models of cognitive functioning. This study applied the plann ing, attention, simultaneous. successive (PASS) cognitive processing m odel, based on the neuropsychological work of A. R. Luria (1973), to t he 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 tha t 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.