The study involving 170 children (3-6 years old) investigated attention as a construct of three components and as an integrated cognitive process. Literature was reviewed which related to the components of attention, the development of a theoretical model which synthesizes attentional components with an ongoing process, the development of attention and the use of verbal mediation as an appropriate method of investigating attention, and the developmental relationships among attentional components. Three hypotheses were proposed: (1) reflectivity is related to field independence and task attention and field independence is also related to task attention within age groups; (2) reflectivity will significantly increase as field independence increases and will also increase as task attention increases across age groups; and (3) the average performance in the measures of the components of attention increase significantly as a function of age. The following measures were used: Preschool Embedded Pictures Test, Kansas Reflectivity-Impulsivity Scale for Preschoolers, Preschool Attention-Vigilance Test, and Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. The hypotheses seemed to be supported in that there were strong inverse correlations between age and the attentional components. (SBH)