Increasing and Expanding a Student's Attention Span

Lots of kids often struggle to pay attention, but when they are given a task they view as challenging or hard, they are even more likely to give up before truly trying. Especially if you notice a child that is regularly losing focus during challenging tasks, here are some strategies that might help increase that attention span and improve the overall outcome of tasks.

 Attention span?

Attention span is the amount of time spent concentrating on a task before becoming distracted. For a task their focus and attention on the task at some point will be diverted. However attention spans in children are variable but tend to follow a certain pattern.Think about one of the biggest challenges with regards to a child’s attention span is that when they are younger, parents are very creative in finding ways to keep them engaged in their activities. Everything is fun and interesting and new, which can affect the parents’ abilities to see an accurate reading on their children’s attention abilities.

However, when the child starts school, the activities can feel repetitive, difficult, and sometimes un-interesting to children, such as practicing writing their name, or learning how to stand in line or following instructions for the next activity. You will notice that if a child is having a shorter attention span than normal, this will certainly affect the way they are able to pay attention to their teachers or caregivers when the activities are less interesting to them.

Factors affecting attention span

A variety of factors can affect your child’s attention span from how they are feeling that day, to outside influences that are drawing their attention away from the activities, to simple things such as needing to use the potty or wanting a snack. The first thing to know is to analyze their attention spans when they are calm, having a reasonably positive day, and have few major distractions around them. It’s also essential to take your child’s attention span into the context of their overall, every day interactions and how long they are able to pay attention to a variety of determined situations.

2 Minutes per year of age

Some experts believe it to be closer to 2 to 3 minutes per year of age while some experts go as far as saying five minutes, although many refute this larger claim.

Therefore, according to age, your child’s attention spans would look relatively close to this:

By age 4, attention span increases to about 8 to 12 minutes.

By age 5, your child’s attention span would likely be 10 to 14 minutes.

By age 6, 12 to 18 minutes

by age 7, 14 to 21 minutes

by age 8, 16 to 24 minutes

by age 9, 18-27 minutes

by age 10, 20 to 30 minutes

by age 11, 22 to 33 minutes

by age 12, 24 to 36 minutes

by age 13, 26 to 39 minutes

by age 14, 28 to 42 minutes

by age 15, 30 to 45 minutes

by age 16, 32 to 48 minutes

by age 17, 34 to 51 minutes

by age 18, 36 to 54 minutes

This list makes reasonable sense based on the idea of 2 to 3 minutes per year of age until you get closer to the age of teenagers and adults. Because of the influx of the media age, many adults are experiencing much shorter attention spans, some articles indicating as low as 8 to 12 seconds!

People’s attention spans are falling and people are so distracted by the multiple and myriad of distractions both online and off, people are actually getting better at multitasking. While we still give weight to a child’s attention span as a measure of cognitive and learning development, it is a bit harder to analyze with regards to teenagers and adults. So, before your youngster begins using a lot of online resources, it is a bit easier to measure their natural attention span.

Because there has been so much in the news in the past few years about the falling attention spans of adults, it’s even more important to understand ways that we might increase attention span and thereby increase our ability to complete tasks and to learn and retain worldly material. After all, you cannot learn that which you are not paying attention to!

Let’s discuss some ways that attention span can be improved upon, some tasks and tests that you can take or manage, and ways to get your child focused to get things accomplished.

Physical Activity Its Importance

Lot of kids who struggle with attention often do better if they are given brief breaks for active play. Taking a break to bounce on an exercise ball, break up learning into chunks, and outdoor play times, or providing a quick stretching or jumping jacks break in the classroom, can all assist the attention-challenged student stay focused. Starting with 15 minutes of active play before a challenging task can also assist a child stay more absorbed.

Taking "Attention Breaks"

Teaching a child about what is the meaning to pay attention or how it looks like.Ideally practice attentive behavior in non-threatening, non-crucial times during the school day. Then, at periodic intervals, have practice attention breaks. Using a timer or an app on the phone, have a signal go off during the work period, and have the child mark whether he/she was paying attention. It is crucial to train a student's brain to understand what attention looks like, and how often he/she is tempted to disengage.

Adjust The Time Frames

If you find that, no matter what you do, the children just can't seem to stay on work, it may be time to break content into small time intervals. You will find children can concentrate on one task for two to five minutes per year old. For example, if you have a classroom of 6 year olds, expect 12 to 30 minutes of attention for your students.

Remember if you need to adjust time frames for all or some of your students, do so. Using timers are an excellent way to have the student who is struggling with attention show his/her work after a short period of time. This breaks up the task and allows the child to keep working without feeling completely overwhelmed. It’s a good idea to call the child to your desk for these checks. Infact this provides the physical movement that the child needs in order to stay engaged, and also gives you the opportunity to monitor his/her progress.

Also, be cautious about lengthy lectures with kids with short attention spans. These children need to be kept involved with the material, so ask for responses regularly on the subject matter you are discussing. Even a simple question, asking for a raise of hands, can be what is necessary to keep students on task.

Tips to Remove Visual Distractions

This works wonderfullt when a child is struggling with a difficult task, clutter in the classroom or on the desk can make it impossible to keep his/her brain where it needs to be, remove unnecessary clutter and visual experiences from the workspace. You may find that this gives the child fewer excuses for not focusing on the task at hand.

 Practice attentive behavior.

One could simply say that paying attention is an intrinsic character of all human beings, but it isn't. We need to know that paying attention is something that is learned. It can also be taught. It is considered important that parents and teachers should take time to teach children what it means to pay attention and what it looks like. It is found that throughout the day teachers should take breaks to practice attentive behavior. Use an electronic timer, stopwatch or hourglass and have your child or students practice focusing on an object, discussion or other activity exclusively for just a few minutes. Then have the students ask themselves if they were able to pay full attention during the time. Having attention breaks where students focus on paying attention is a great exercise that will help improve their ability to focus and attention span.

Varied Instructional Strategies

Teachers should use a variety of instructional strategies and these should be changed approximately every 15 to 20 minutes. For example, they could deliver information for 15 minutes via lecture. This strategy could be followed by small group work or cooperative learning for 20 minutes. Next, students could engage in individual seatwork or watch a video.

Ways to Minimize Noise and Other Distractions

Students who are easyily disturbed should benefit from a structured auditory environment. Studies report that they may need preferential seating near the front of the classroom so that noise and distractions from other students are minimized.

Use Daily Planners Effectively

It helps if a student should use a structured daily planner to help him organize his assignments and activities. Arguably a planner that is broken down by subject within the day and has sufficient room to write all the information he needs would be preferred. ELAN Publishing offers a number of good student organizers (available from CDL's A+ Store). Alternately, he may benefit and profit from using a personal digital assistant (PDA).

Allow Time to Wind Down

It is also the case that many students with attention problems have trouble falling asleep at night.It may sound nice that it is helpful for them to have an established routine for going to bed at night. For example, they could read a book or have a book read to them. You will be surprised to find out that they can engage in stretching exercises before getting in bed. They might also listen to quiet, easy music while falling asleep. "White noise," such as a fan, may also be helpful in facilitating sleep.