Tonight at neuroscience class, we discussed attention, especially in regards to kids with ADHD. Here are some of the takeaways (I trust my classmates -will correct me if I get something wrong): *it really matters if the problem is too much sensitivity to periphery or not enough close focus. *If a kid is oversensitive to peripheral distractions, its a bad idea to sit them near the front of a room. *putting an ADHD kid in a really quiet room totally counterproductive, because it magnifies every small thing. In a really still environment, a small thing like someone dropping a pencil is much more distracting than it would be in a place with lots of ambient white noise *sensory white noise generally is really beneficial, and it doesnt matter what sense it is, its just important that its not patterned. *example: a kindergarten teacher published her success with an ADHD student - she stuck velcro under his desk. The kid would feel the velcro and it helped him focus. The feel of the velcro has a similar effect to listening to white noise or noise canceling headphones. *weirdly (and I kind of love this) the best solution neuroscientists have found so far on improving close focus is crochet. Seriously. The rest of the class was on the cognitive benefits of (and Im not making this up) video games. Call of Duty was name checked a lot. I would expand, but this post is already super long.
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 03:56:45 +0000
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