Comparison of Processing Speed, Selective Attention, Planning, and Alexithymia between Children of Divorce and Normal Children

Introduction: Divorce and its unfavorable behavioral consequences have numerous undesirable effects on children. For this reason, investigating the psychological factors affecting these consequences is of great importance. Aim: The present research was conducted aiming to compare processing speed, selective attention, planning, and alexithymia between children of divorce and normal children. Method: The current research was a descriptive and causal-comparative study. The statistical population consisted of all 8-12-year-old female and male students in the 14th and 15th districts of the city of Tehran in the academic year of 2023-2024. Of this population, 80 people were selected as children of divorce and 80 people as normal children by the convenience method and purposefully. Connors’ Neuropsychology Inventory (2004) and Bagby et al.’s (1994) Alexithymia Scale were used for data collection. Data were analyzed using the independent t-test by SPSS version 24 software. Results: According to the t-test results, all research variables, including processing speed, selective attention, planning, and alexithymia, were significantly different in the two groups of children of divorce and normal children (P<0.05). Accordingly, in the variables of processing speed, selective attention, and planning, the mean score of normal children was higher than that of children of divorce, but in the components of alexithymia, including difficulty in identifying emotions, difficulty in describing emotions, and objective thinking, the mean score of children of divorce was higher than that of normal children. Conclusion: According to the obtained results, it can be concluded that parents’ divorce is considered a factor for the occurrence of problems in children’s processing speed, selective attention, planning, and alexithymia, so paying attention to children of divorce is of great importance.