Attention Networks in Deaf Youth: A Cross-Sectional Study of Age-Related Patterns

Attention plays a central role in intellectual development and social interaction. Attention may differ between deaf and hearing youth, but it remains unclear whether such differences reflect hearing status, language experience, age-related factors, or some combination of these factors. In this cross-sectional study, we combined the Attention Network Test with comparisons of alternative age functions, age-stratified analyses, and EZ-diffusion modeling using data from 525 participants aged 6-19 years (200 deaf and 325 hearing). Both groups performed similarly during childhood, and alerting showed no reliable cross-sectional association with age, with no reliable difference between groups. In both groups, executive-control costs were smaller at older ages. The Bayesian information criterion (BIC) favored a linear age function for deaf participants and a logarithmic function for hearing participants. Crucially, however, the formal Group × Age interaction was not significant; the difference in functional form should therefore be treated as descriptive. By contrast, orienting was linearly related to age among deaf participants but followed a decelerating quadratic pattern among hearing participants; the Group × Age interaction was significant. Deaf participants also showed smaller benefits from spatial cues during early and middle adolescence. EZ-diffusion modeling further indicated that conflict produced a larger reduction in drift rate and a larger increase in non-decision time among deaf than among hearing participants, whereas conflict-related boundary adjustments were comparable between groups. Together, these findings suggest that deaf and hearing youth differ in visual attention in a network-specific, age-related manner rather than exhibiting either a generalized deficit or a generalized compensatory advantage. Because hearing status, language experience, and educational context were intertwined in this sample, the observed group differences cannot be interpreted as causal effects of deafness or auditory deprivation.