TIP of the WEEK: Attention Span

July 3, 2015

People with PWS can have difficulty paying attention and/ or maintaining focus for more than a few minutes. Here are some ways to improve your child’s attention span.

1. Eliminate distractions. It is often difficult for our kids to ignore distractions.  When practicing focus techniques be sure to keep external distractions to a minimum.

2. Make eye contact.  When you are asking them to do something have them make eye contact and keep the instruction simple. Slowly add steps. Paying attention is an essential skill in school and later in life. It will be difficult to teach this if it is not started early.

3. Use what they like. Our kids can often focus for long periods of time when it is something that they enjoy. Use that. Focus is something that needs to be practiced everyday. Make “focus time” a daily activity.

4. Start small. Be sure that activities are timed and not open ended. Schedule activities for short amounts of time and slowly increase the time allotted.

5. Practice meditation. Mindfulness and meditation are excellent tools for improving attention span. People with PWS are surprisingly very good at these activities and they have many benefits including increasing focus.

Patrice Carroll
Manager of PWS Services