Sustained Attention is one of the executive function skills that are necessary to navigate many aspects of life, including school, jobs, leisure, family time, and other daily activities.
Supportive Care ABA has a great article on the average human attention span and how to improve it. Currently, sustained attention length is determined using the calculation of 2-3 minutes per year of age. However, according to a study done by Microsoft in 2015, our average attention span is 8 seconds. What is the difference between sustained attention and attention span? Attention span is the ability to focus on a single task, while sustained attention is when we focus on more complex tasks.
Attention span can be impacted by several factors, including sleep, nutrition, access to technology, and multitasking. According to Dr. Gloria Mark, when we donāt get enough sleep, we go into sleep debt, which weakens our attention span. When we are in this state, we do other things that donāt take as much brain effort. When we donāt have the nutrients we need, our brains can misfire. We know that when students are hungry, they cannot focus.
Our brains want novelty, excitement, and a social connection, and we often seek these things out on devices. When we use devices to play games or access social media, we get a small hit of dopamine that makes us want more of it. This impacts our ability to do other things that are less rewarding for our brains. Multitasking actually teaches our brains to wander and find new things. The more we do this, the more our brains want to wander and not focus. As we consider how to strengthen attention, we need also to consider these things in our lives that can negatively impact attention and address them as well.
Dr. Gloria Mark has found that our attention span has changed in the last 20 years. In the early 2000s, when using a screen, the average adult would maintain attention for roughly 2 Ā½ minutes before switching screens. Around 2017, that time had dropped to 47 seconds. We also have different kinds of focus, which all have a place in our lives. Focused attention is when we are engaged and exerting effort, and an example would be when you are learning something new, working on a project, or doing an assignment. You are engaged and really thinking about the information.
Rote attention occurs when you are engaged but not challenged. Playing a game on your phone or brushing your teeth are examples of rote attention. We often do these things mindlessly because our brains are not challenged. The state of boredom occurs when you are not engaged and not challenged. Frustration occurs when you are challenged but not engaged. It occurs when something is difficult for you, and you cannot engage with and learn from it.
All these kinds of attention happen to us, sometimes all the same day. As adults, we have learned how to handle these changes in attention in socially appropriate ways. Our children need to learn how to respond to all these kinds of attention in a way that supports their learning and the ability to participate in daily life.
To strengthen sustained attention, is it helpful to estimate how long a task will take. If we talk about how long something will take, we are helping to build the internal ability to estimate and understand time. After completing a task, talk about how long it took and maybe even why it took longer than you thought or was quicker than anticipated.
Give a visual way to check the elapsed time. Use a timer and break longer things into shorter chunks. This does not have to be just time-oriented but quantity. When I think about cleaning a messy house, that can be overwhelming, but if I break it into smaller chunks, such as one bathroom, then the closet, and then the other bathroom, it is less intimidating. The same can be said for a child cleaning a bedroom. Break the task into smaller jobs with a visual checklist.
Put other items away. Even having our phones in our vicinity reduces our attention. We already discussed multitasking and the importance of focusing on one thing at a time. DO take short breaks; this helps us reset our attention. Lastly, have a goal, visualize it, and then get busy making it happen.
Another way to increase attention is to figure out where you are startingāthis is your base rate or baseline. Then, increase that time by 2-3 minutes. Some research shows that a timer set in intervals is helpful. When the sound goes off, you ask yourself, āWas I paying attention?ā This supports mindfulness of how you use your attention and what distracts you. Making tasks interesting, using incentives, and celebrating when a task is finished will also help increase sustained attention.
Sustained attention is the capacity to keep paying attention to a situation or task despite distractibility, fatigue, or boredom. Sustained attention can increase if we put strategies and tools in place to increase the amount of time and ability to focus incrementally.
I have created a video on Sustained Attention that is posted on the BESTskills4life YouTube channel, that can be used to help adults better understand Sustained Attention and how to support its development.
Feel free to reach out to me if you have questions about sustained attention or how executive function skills impact students in the classroom. pbuckingham.kansas@gmail.com
References
Canāt pay attention? Youāre not alone | University of California. (2024). Universityofcalifornia.Edu. https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/cant-pay-attention-youre-not-alone
Dawson, P., & Guare, R. (2009). Smart but Scattered: The Revolutionary āExecutive Skillsā Approach to Helping Kids Reach Their Potential (1st ed.). Guilford Press.
Dawson, P., & Guare, R. (2018). Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents, Third Edition: A Practical Guide to Assessment and Intervention (The Guilford Practical Intervention in the Schools Series) (Third Edition, Lay-Flat Paperback ed.). The Guilford Press.
Does technology affect our memory? | SiOWfa15: Science in Our World: Certainty and Controversy. (2023). Sites.Psu.Edu. https://sites.psu.edu/siowfa15/2015/09/16/does-technology-affect-our-memory/
Average Human Attention Span (By Age, Gender & Race). (2024). Supportivecareaba.Com. https://www.supportivecareaba.com/statistics/average-attention-span
Mills, Kim, host. āWhy Our Attention Spans Are Shrinking, with Gloria Mark, PhD.ā Speaking of Psychology, episode 225, American Psychological Association, 2023, https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/attention-spans.
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