Helping the Unfocused Mind: Teaching Strategies for Students Having Difficulty Getting and Maintaining Attention
As Levine (2002) states, attention is the brain’s manager, including a complicated network of controls that regulate most of the processes involved in learning and behavior. Levine, an authority in brain research and founder of "All Kinds of Minds", adds that attention does not accomplish anything on its own, but rather it helps the brain determine what to do, when, and for how long. Children who struggle paying attention in the classroom, also known as children with short attention span and/or inattentive students, frequently exhibit problem behaviors such as: •Distracted by background stimuli (irrelevant visual, auditory, and/or tactile stimuli) •Shifting from one uncompleted task to another task that is also left unfinished •Losing and/or misplacing the books and materials necessary for completing the task; forgetful •Do not pay attention to details, and due to this, they make careless mistakes •Do not seem to listen •Difficulty organizing tasks (what comes first, ne...