One of the many difficulties facing individuals with attention challenges is the ability to deal with (and ultimately filter out) distractions. The Play Attention activities help facilitate this by strengthening the skill of Discriminatory Processing, which is the ability to discriminate between incoming stimuli very quickly. This allows a person to pay attention to what is important while filtering out the things that are unnecessary. In fact, one of the Play Attention exercises is specifically named for that cognitive skill. In addition, as you move into the intermediate and advanced levels, Sheer Genius adds both auditory and visual distractions in order to provide yet another opportunity to practice filtering unnecessary stimuli.
That being said, there are things parents and coaches can do to help with respect to the environment. With regards to the location in which your child/student does their Play Attention sessions, try to minimize physical distractions. You want to avoid things like open windows nearby, where the student can see out. Keep the computer screen front and center, and (if possible) turned at such an angle where there's nothing overly distracting or stimulating behind it. This would ideally be the corner of a room, preferably with blank walls, (no pictures or posters), making the computer screen itself the most interesting thing in the child's field of vision.
Also be aware of auditory distractions, like a television being on in another room, or the perpetual "dings" of a nearby cell phone. You might not even notice such things, but your child/student with ADHD absolutely will. You may want to use headphones in order to help limit the number of auditory distractions in the environment.
By decreasing the sheer number of things drawing on your student's attention, we minimize their need to filter things out, which helps with the development of Discriminatory Processing as a skill. Now, granted, once your student has become adept at such skills, your Executive Function Coach will probably recommend that you make the play environment more distracting on purpose. By gradually introducing more environmental distractions, you are providing an opportunity for your student to practice staying on task while filtering distractions. This is a skill they need in the classroom. Until that time, we want to give the student every advantage.
That being said, there are things parents and coaches can do to help with respect to the environment. With regards to the location in which your child/student does their Play Attention sessions, try to minimize physical distractions. You want to avoid things like open windows nearby, where the student can see out. Keep the computer screen front and center, and (if possible) turned at such an angle where there's nothing overly distracting or stimulating behind it. This would ideally be the corner of a room, preferably with blank walls, (no pictures or posters), making the computer screen itself the most interesting thing in the child's field of vision.
Also be aware of auditory distractions, like a television being on in another room, or the perpetual "dings" of a nearby cell phone. You might not even notice such things, but your child/student with ADHD absolutely will. You may want to use headphones in order to help limit the number of auditory distractions in the environment.
By decreasing the sheer number of things drawing on your student's attention, we minimize their need to filter things out, which helps with the development of Discriminatory Processing as a skill. Now, granted, once your student has become adept at such skills, your Executive Function Coach will probably recommend that you make the play environment more distracting on purpose. By gradually introducing more environmental distractions, you are providing an opportunity for your student to practice staying on task while filtering distractions. This is a skill they need in the classroom. Until that time, we want to give the student every advantage.
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