Strategies for Maintaining Attention, Focus, and Concentration (page 2)

Additional Strategies

Additionally, the following strategies were developed by Dr. Mel Levine for use with children experiencing attentional difficulties.  Areas of need are identified by using Dr. Levine’s Questionnaire of Areas of Information Processing.  Dr. Teeya Scholten, Calgary Learning Centre, adapted these strategies for use with adults and children.

Alertness

■ Preferential seating in class
■ Careful management of sleep: arousal patterns – for consistency of work, sleep, class or work scheduling.
■ Reduction in “chunk size” of work, frequent breaks (or opportunity to move around).
■ Use of hands for physical activity (ball of clay, doodling).
■ Possible use of stimulant medication.
■ Use areas of strength (i.e., strong modalities/affinities) in school/workplace.

Taking in Information Deeply Enough

■ Stress on rehearsal strategies or verbal mediation (e.g., “How am I going to accomplish my goal?”) through sub vocalization, mental “scratch pad,” note taking.
■ Self-testing techniques.
■ Repetition of instructions, explanations.
■ Demonstrate activity to illustrate understanding of material/instructions.
■ When studying – check your understanding not just memorizing.

Passive or Excessive Active Processing

■ Reminder cards (“Am I being passive or is my mind active or maybe too active?”).
■ A disciplined approach to thinking more deeply about a subject (e.g., “What are the things you already know that this new material reminds you of?  How is it pretty much like it?  How is it new and different?”).
■ Acquisition and long-term pursuit of expertise in areas of interest.
■ Keeping score of “cancelled mind trips” and/or “wake up calls.”
■ Making constructive use of creative/imaginary tendencies in those who tend to engage in a “free flight” of ideas.
■ Encouragement of high quality processing of information in a “top-down” fashion (e.g., “What are the major concepts involved?” “How does this new information fit into the overall scheme?”).

Determining the Importance of Information

■ Stress on development of paraphrasing and summarization skills.
■ Games emphasizing vigilance and attention to fine detail.
■ Margin monitoring, underlining and circling skills when reading/studying.
■ Practice crossing out irrelevant information (e.g., in word problems in math).

Filtering Out Distractions

■ Minimizing distraction at home, work and school.
■ Use of consistent background sounds (e.g. use of earplugs, music on a Walkman) when reading/studying.
■ Frequent but timed breaks from study.

Ability to Satisfy Oneself

■ Use of high motivational content for learning – give choices.
■ Stress on: sharing, timed delays of gratification.
■ Identification and acknowledgement of areas which are not interesting and in which there will be low motivation.
■ The establishment of “getting satisfied” time allocations at home.
■ You want to recognize that you enjoy doing exciting things! With minimal “moralization”/judgement about it.

Preview of Outcomes

■ Application of “what if’s?” exercises to imagine future occurrences/outcomes – in behavioral, social and/or cognitive-academic areas.
■ Stress on articulating and describing final products (i.e., “What do I want this to look like when it’s finished?  What is it you want to say in this report?  What do you want this girl to think about you? How would you like your behavior to be in the lunch room?”).
■ Diagramming of previewed outcomes.
■ Practice estimating answers.

Behavioural Control

■ Review of alternative (cognitive -academic, social, and/or behavioral) strategies and selection of strategy which has the best chance of working out (i.e.,”best-bet”), along with “back-up” strategies in case it is needed.
■ Submission of work plans.
■ Using flow charts to diagram alternative choices involving acting or inhibiting behavior and the respective consequences.
■ Post-hoc review of outcomes and explore other alternatives that might have worked better.

Additional Information

For more information and targeted interventions, see this handout: Attention to Task and Work Completion Handout