Effects of caffeine on classroom behavior, sustained attention, and a memory task in preschool children.
Caffeine does not help or hurt classroom behavior in typical kindergarteners.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers gave normal-dose caffeine to kindergarteners during class.
They used an ABAB reversal: caffeine drink, plain drink, caffeine, plain.
Kids stayed in their regular classroom while staff tracked behavior, attention, and a simple memory game.
What they found
Caffeine barely moved the needle.
Attention, rule-following, and memory scores stayed about the same in every phase.
The authors call the changes “small and inconsistent.”
How this fits with other research
Strumwasser (1994) looks like the opposite story.
That team ran the same ABAB caffeine design with adults who have severe intellectual disability.
When caffeine came back, ward staff saw a sharp jump in disturbance.
The difference: population severity, not the drug.
Typical five-year-olds already sit fairly still; caffeine has little room to help or hurt.
Riches et al. (2016) show what does work for preschool attention problems.
Their Preschool First Step program gave teacher praise, clear rules, and social-skills games to kids at risk for ADHD.
Teachers saw big gains in on-task behavior without any pills.
Veenman et al. (2018) meta-analysis backs this up: classroom-wide behavior programs reliably cut disruption and raise engagement across 19 trials.
Why it matters
Skip the caffeine hunt.
If a neurotypical kindergartner drifts off, look at seating, task length, or teacher attention first.
Save medical caffeine questions for doctors and for populations with more severe challenges.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The effects of caffeine on the behavior of young children is an important issue, as children in our society consume considerable amounts of caffeine, primarily in soft drinks. This study investigated the effects of normative amounts of caffeine on the behavior of 6 normal children in a kindergarten setting. Using a reversal design, counterbalanced for order of conditions, children's behavior was examined during a baseline condition, a caffeinated beverage condition, and a noncaffeinated beverage condition. Measures included direct observation of off-task and gross motor activity, actometer readings of movement, a Continuous Performance Test, a Paired Associates Learning Test, and teacher ratings of classroom behavior. Results suggest that caffeine exerts only small and inconsistent effects on the classroom behavior of kindergarten children. These results cast doubt on the importance of caffeine as a variable controlling the classroom behavior of normal kindergartners.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1987 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1987.20-225