Understanding Attention Span: A Key Pre-Linguistic Skill
Welcome back to our blog series dedicated to helping parents support their child's pre-linguistic skills through simple and fun play activities. Pre-linguistic skills are the foundational abilities that children develop before they start using words and sentences to communicate. These skills are critical because they set the stage for all future language learning and communication. By nurturing these abilities, parents can help their children build strong language skills that will serve them throughout their lives. In this blog post, we’re chatting about attention span: the what, the why, and the how.
What is Attention Span?
One important pre-linguistic skill is your child’s attention span. Attention span refers to the ability of a child to stay focused on a particular activity or task. For young children, this often means being able to engage in an activity for at least five minutes on their own and even longer when interacting with an adult. This ability to maintain focus is crucial for learning new skills, especially when it comes to language development.
More in the Series
Find out more about other pre-linguistic skills that are important in your child’s development: Joint Attention, Turn-Taking, and Play Skills.
Why is Attention Span Important?
Attention span is often considered the "gatekeeper" for learning. Without the ability to focus, children may struggle to take in new information or follow along with what is being taught. This is especially true for language learning, where attention allows a child to listen, observe, and eventually imitate the sounds, words, sentences, and structures they hear from others. A well-developed attention span helps children engage more deeply in activities, learn new concepts more effectively, and communicate more clearly.
Strategies to Support Attention Span Development at Home
As a parent, you play a vital role in helping your child develop their attention span. Here are some simple strategies you can try at home:
Warm Up Before Teaching Activities: Just like adults, children benefit from a warm-up before diving into a focused activity. Engage your child in a few minutes of movement or a favorite game to help them settle down and prepare to pay attention before an activity. Here are just a few fun examples: the freeze dance, Simon says, or try out Brain Pop At-Home for learning-related movement videos (yoga, clapping along to syllables, and more).
Incorporate Movement Activities: Just like warming up before an activity, many children benefit from incorporated movement activities. Embedded activities like dancing, jumping, or playing with a ball can help children concentrate, process, and retain information. You can optimize this strategy by using movement activities that cross midline! Activities that involve crossing midline, such as windmills and cross crawls, help strengthen neural networks between hemispheres of the brain resulting in increased executive function (e.g., decision-making and planning skills).
Start with Interesting Activities: Capture your child’s attention by starting with activities they find exciting or enjoyable. Once they are engaged, you can gradually introduce new tasks that require more focus and that are less interesting to them.
Limit Screen Time: While screens can be entertaining, too much screen time can make it harder for toddlers to focus on non-digital activities. Try to limit screen time and encourage more hands-on play.
Try the "One More" Rule: When your child starts to lose interest in an activity, encourage them to do “one more” thing—one more block, one more puzzle piece, one more drawing. This simple rule can help gradually extend their attention span over time.
By incorporating these strategies into your daily routine, you can help your child build a stronger attention span, which will, in turn, support their overall language and cognitive development. Stay tuned for more tips and ideas in our series on pre-linguistic skills!
Do you have concerns about your child’s attention span? We’re here to help you with all of your speech and language needs! Contact us for more information about our services.