Maximising attention for taking part in activities

Some children have difficulty focusing on their activities at home and in school, making it much harder for them to learn and participate.

Signs of this could include:

• lots of incessant talking
• lots of movement or fidgeting
• appearing sluggish or slumping in their chair

There may be a number of reasons for this including:

• demand of the activity is either too easy or too difficult
• child is having difficulty understanding or processing the language being used
• child may be having difficulty processing or using the sensory information from the environment around them – see Using my senses advice sheet

It is also important to remember that we all have our own ‘sensory strategies’ to help us to concentrate and focus on tasks. Some people need to have background music whilst others need silence. Some people need to chew or fiddle with objects and some people need to ‘doodle’. This is the same for children, although it is often seen in a more extreme way as their sensory systems are still developing.

Consider if the sensory strategy that the child is using is:

• safe
• appropriate for the environment
• helping the child to participate (even if it is not initially evident that they are)