Unlocking Potential: The Vital Role of Attention Development in Children

1. The Importance of Attention

Attention is often underestimated in terms of its importance for success. It is the foundation of learning; to consciously learn anything, one must first focus. As the Russian educator Ushinsky aptly pointed out:

"Attention is the only gateway to our mind, and everything that enters our consciousness must pass through it."

Children are born with the ability to be highly alert, but the ability to shift and sustain their attention develops as they grow. The development of the brain systems related to attention in the early years can impact a child's attention span throughout their life.

While much of the development of attention systems occurs naturally with age, research shows that the environment—how children spend their days and their experiences—can influence this process.

For example, it is crucial for children to have a strong sense of security with their parents. This ensures that they don’t waste mental energy worrying about their basic needs being met, allowing their brains to relax while staying alert and learning from their surroundings.

2. How Attention Works

Psychologist Michael Posner, through brain scans and behavioral studies, discovered that attention consists of three main components. To focus, you must:

1. Alert: Turn towards new, attention-grabbing things.
2. Shift: Move attention from the current focus to a new one.
3. Sustain: Maintain focus on the same thing, ignoring other stimuli, thoughts, and emotions.

Children are naturally alert. Newborns tend to focus on familiar things, like their mother's voice, and soon begin to pay attention to new things in their world.

The brain circuits needed for alertness and shifting attention form within the first 14 months, making this a crucial period for enhancing these abilities.

The ability to sustain attention develops more slowly and requires "inhibitory control"—slowing reactions to other stimuli and focusing on the task at hand, as well as "delayed gratification."

These inhibitory abilities depend largely on the frontal lobes, which mature later than other parts of the brain, starting around age 2 and continuing to develop until around age 7.

Psychologist Walter Mischel's famous "marshmallow experiment" demonstrated that a child's ability to control impulses at ages 4-6 can predict their future performance. Children who could delay gratification had better academic results than those who couldn’t. Fortunately, these abilities can be nurtured.

3. New Threats to Attention

In today’s fragmented information age, attention is one of the scarcest resources. Our attention is increasingly taken up by screens—phones, tablets, computers, TV, etc. This trend poses two new threats to children's attention:

1. Competing for Parental Attention: As parents spend more time on screens, children struggle more to get their attention. A suggested solution is to designate specific "No Screen" times or areas at home.

2. Natural Preference for Screens: Children mimic their parents, and seeing parents on screens makes children want the same. This can take away from other activities that better develop attention. Recommendations include:

   • Avoid screens for children aged 0-2.
   • Provide varied play experiences both indoors and outdoors.
   • Use household items for games instead of flashy, noisy toys, like matching socks by color.

4. How to Nurture Attention in Infants and Toddlers

Cognitive scientists studying how humans learn have identified factors that affect the brain’s ability to focus. Parents can use these insights to guide their choice of games, activities, and interactions with their children.

Six factors influencing the brain's ability to focus are:

1. Intensity: The brain pays more attention to high contrasts, such as loud vs. soft speech. Similarly, high-contrast colors like black and white attract a baby's attention.

2. Size: The brain likes to focus on very large or very small objects. Providing toys of varying sizes can captivate a child’s attention.

3. Novelty: The brain is wired to pay close attention to new things as a survival mechanism. Regularly rotate toys, show new items, and introduce new foods or people to keep a child’s brain engaged.

4. Incongruity: The brain notices things that stand out from the norm. Design “spot the difference” games at home.

5. Emotion: Emotional state affects the ability to focus. Effective learning happens when a child is in a positive emotional state and focused.

6. Self-Relevance: We pay more attention to things that relate to us. Children love hearing their names and will be more engaged if stories feature them as the protagonist.

5. Attention Development Checklist

Typical developmental milestone charts list what children should be able to do at each stage but rarely address what parents can do to help. Each child’s development is unique, and instead of fixating on whether a child has reached milestones, parents can focus on how to support them in achieving these milestones.

Here’s a guide for parents to nurture attention development in infants and toddlers:

Infants (0-6 months):

• Talk to your baby face-to-face with exaggerated expressions.
• Make frequent eye contact and try to maintain it.
• Use bells or other objects to hold their gaze.
• Point to and describe objects and daily actions.
• Use “parentese” (exaggerated, melodic speech) to attract attention.
• Engage during alert times with interactive games.
• Rotate toys to maintain novelty.
• Use high-contrast colored objects to attract attention.
• Place toys about 25-30 cm from their face.
• Make funny faces and watch them mimic you.

Toddlers (6-18 months):

• Continue face-to-face interactions and exaggerated expressions.
• Maintain eye contact and try to keep it.
• Use objects to hold their gaze.
• Point and describe objects and actions.
• Gradually transition from “parentese” to child-directed conversation with suitable tone and speed.
• Engage during alert times with interactive games.
• Rotate toys to maintain novelty.
• Say “look” to direct their attention before demonstrating actions.
• Introduce one concept at a time, such as sorting objects by color.