Attention class

Tag : Tool For Children

Using a training program he calls "RoboMemo," Klingberg has helpedchildren improve their working memory and complex reasoning skills,according to studies published in the Journal of the AmericanAcademy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, among otherpublications. This appears to pay off in attention as well: Thechildren were also reported to be less impulsive and inattentive bytheir parents, although their teachers largely did not report thosebehavioral improvements.
Christopher Lucas of New York University, one of the US researchersusing Klingberg's software, used the RoboMemo training program toboost the visuospatial memory of a group of children, and foundthat as this type of working memory improved, they became morefocused and compliant. Lucas, a psychiatrist, cautioned that suchmemory training isn't a quick fix for attention-deficit disorders.Working memory "is one of the areas that's implicated in ADHD," hesays. "I don't think it's the whole story."
Other attention research eschews that kind of technology, insteadinvestigating the attention-boosting potential of something verydifferent: the 2,500-year-old tradition of meditative practice.With a long history but little scientific data on its effects,meditation has begun to intrigue neuroscientists in labs around thecountry, who are measuring the success of meditative practices thatboost skills of focus and awareness.
Lidia Zylowska, an assistant clinical professor in psychiatry atUCLA, cofounded the university's Mindful Awareness Research Centerand is a pioneer in the study of meditation's impact on human focusand attention.
In one study, Zylowska and colleagues reported that eight weeks ofmindfulness meditation - a technique designed to improve attentionand well-being largely by focusing on breathing - boosted bothpowers of focus and self-control in 24 adults and eight teens withADHD. The work was published in May in the Journal of AttentionDisorders. Others are finding similar gains from meditation inthose without ADHD. Preliminary results from the largestattention-training study to date, which tracked 64 peoplemeditating full-time for three months, reveal improved sustainedattention and visual discrimination, says the lead researcher, UCDavis neuroscientist Clifford Saron, who presented the results atthe Cognitive Neuroscience Society's annual meeting in April.
. . .
If focus skills can be groomed, as research has begun to hint, theimportant next question is whether, and how, attention should beintegrated into education. Will attention become a 21st-century"discipline," a skill taught by parents, educators, even employers?Already a growing number of educators are showing interest inattention training, mostly through the practice of meditation inthe classroom.
Susan Kaiser Greenland, a former corporate lawyer who started thenonprofit InnerKids Foundation in 2001 to teach meditationpractices in communities and schools, says demand outstrips herstaffing. The Santa Monica, Calif.-based nonprofit works withchildren ages 4 to 12.
"The kids are stressed out, they are distracted, and they are notable to sit still," she says. "There are more schools interested inour work than we can possibly serve."
But with the field of attention training still in its infancy,scientists don't yet understand if any current teaching haslong-lasting gains - or, for that matter, which practices workbest. Some researchers, for example, question computer-basedefforts as too narrow in scope, arguing that children must betaught attention holistically, as a life skill. No brief trainingregime is likely to be a magic bullet, they say.
"Part of the problem in today's society is that people are lookingfor extremely quick fixes that have no vision. People are lookingto lose 20 pounds for the wedding next week," says Raz at McGill."But attention training is a slow process."
Nonetheless, with global use of controversial ADHD medicinestripling since the early 1990s and evidence mounting that attentioncan be strengthened, researchers are permitting themselves a bit ofcautious excitement at the prospect that attention training couldwork, especially for children.
"Attention is such a basic skill that children need, and to be ableto impact that skill, to teach them how to redirect their attentionand how to become more aware of themselves, their bodies, emotions,and thoughts - it's an exciting thing," says Zylowska. "It's alsocritical."
Maggie Jackson is the author of "Distracted: The Erosion ofAttention and the Coming Dark Age," published this month.