Unique contributions of attentional control and visuomotor integration on concurrent teacher-reported classroom functioning in early elementary students

• Attentional control was related to teacher ratings of children’s self-regulation.
• Visuomotor integration was related to teacher ratings of children’s self-regulation.
• Attentional control and visuomotor integration did not predict problem behaviors.
• Visuomotor integration predicts self-regulation even when attention is considered.

In a diverse sample of 278 kindergarten and first grade students from two U.S. states, this study explored the concurrent associations between directly assessed cognitive processes linked to children’s development and learning—attentional control and visuomotor integration—and two teacher-reported classroom functioning outcomes: self-regulation and problem behaviors. In addition, we examined the relative contribution of attentional control and visuomotor integration to teacher-reported classroom functioning outcomes. After controlling for the effects of child characteristics including age, gender, preschool attendance, ethnicity, free/reduced lunch status, and fine motor coordination abilities, results indicated that attentional control and visuomotor integration were each directly related to teachers’ ratings of classroom self-regulation, but not to classroom problem behaviors. Even after accounting for children’s attentional control abilities and teachers’ ratings of problem behaviors, visuomotor integration was a strong and unique concurrent predictor of children’s classroom self-regulation, as reported by their teachers. Implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed.