HOW OUR MINDS FILTER INFORMATION: UNDERSTANDING INATTENTION

HOW OUR MINDS FILTER INFORMATION: UNDERSTANDING INATTENTION

Imagine that your brain’s capacity to pay attention is like a camping headlight. When you’re focused, that headlight shines bright on what you’re doing. But for some people, this headlight flickers or doesn’t stay on one thing for long. In other words, inattention is difficulty keeping that mental headlight steady and on the task at hand.

Inattention can also be conceptualized as a filter problem. You brain needs to ignore and suppress thousands of pieces of information (called stimuli) throughout the day, from how clothes feels on your skin to the buzzing of lights, to be able to selectively attend to what is needed in the moment. In those with inattention, the filter is too loose and lets too many irrelevant pieces of information pass through which are then distracting.

Causes of inattention

Inattention is a cognitive process that is very vulnerable to internal and external conditions. This means that our ability to focus and filter out irrelevant information will vary depending on our needs, mood, health, and events around us. We are more likely to have trouble focusing if we are:

These factors are normal and reversible. However, some individual’s attention is impaired due to neurodevelopmental factors (most common being ADHD) or aquired factors (e.g., brain injury, dementia, and chronic conditions like diabetes). In these cases, inattention is something the person struggles with on a daily basis and significantly impacts their day to day life.

What inattention looks like in everyday life

Common problems that individuals with inattention encounter include:

Because of their difficulties completing tasks, individuals with inattention are often labelled as ”lazy” or ”oppositional”. On the contrary, many individuals with inattention have to work twice as hard as others to complete tasks and should take pride in their achievements even if it took them longer or if they had to take a longer path to get to their end goal.

Can therapy help with inattention?

In therapy, addressing inattention often involves cognitive and behavioral strategies to improve focus, attention, and organizational skills. Therapists may employ techniques such as mindfulness training, behavior modification, and coaching on time management to help individuals manage and reduce inattentive symptoms. Additionally, therapy can provide a supportive environment to explore underlying issues contributing to inattention and develop personalized strategies to enhance concentration and overall functioning.

At the Leon Psychology Clinic our skilled therapists and psychologists are ready to help you are your child improve focus and well-being.

Frequently Asked Questions

I am a teacher or daycare provider, what can I do to help children with inattention in class?

1. Preferential Seating: The child’s seat should be located in such a way to minimize distractions. Usually near the teacher and away from doors and windows is preferred.
2. Shared Attention: Ensure that you have the child’s attention before providing instructions by making eye contact and/or positioning yourself at eye level.
3. Clear and Visual Instructions: When providing instructions, make sure they are short, simple, and clear. Supplement instructions with pictures, graphs, and key words.
4. Repetition and Reminders: Instructions will need to be repeated and the child with benefit from reminders to reinforce learning. Provide these in a neutral tone.
5. Access to a Quiet Room: Allow the child to complete lengthy assignments and exams in a room free of distractions, such as a quiet room or resource room.
6. Movement: Some children and teens may use movement or other self-stimulation to improve their focus. This might include doodling, using fidgets, humming, etc. If it is unintrusive to other students, allow the student to use this strategy.
7. Noise-Cancelling Headphones: Permit the use of noise-cancelling headphones to reduce noise distractibility during individual work.
8. Access to Recorded Materials: Provide access to recorded lectures, outlines, notes from peers/ teachers, or tools like a smartpen (e.g., LiveScribe) to review missed information.
9. Use Engaging or Multimodal Learning Approaches: Provide highly engaging and varied learning approaches such as auditory, visual, and hands-on activities to maintain focus.
10. Positive Reinforcement: Providing incentives, such as additional time on a preferred activity or special permission, can help increase motivation on non-preferred tasks.

I am a parent of an inattentive child, what strategies can I use at home?

1. Shared Attention: Avoid giving instructions from across the room or while they are actively engrossed on a task. Make sure you are near them and making eye contact.
2. Clear and Visual Instructions: Provide one instruction at a time. Make sure each instruction is short, simple and in words the child can understand. Refer to pictures or graphs to aid in task completion for routine tasks.
3. Repetition and Reminders: Instructions and expectations will need to be repeated often. Reminders will be necessary to reinforce learning. Provide these in a neutral, non-judgemental tone.
4. Frequent Check-ins: You will need to include more check-ins to make sure your child is on the right path when completing a task.
5. Positive Reinforcement: Offer praise, encouragement, and rewards for efforts (not just accomplishments) to help boost the child’s motivation and self-esteem. Incentives, such as additional time on a preferred activity or special permission, can help increase motivation on tasks that are long and arduous.
6. Dedicated and Quiet Workspace: Set up a quiet workspace for your child at home away from the busy areas of your home (for example facing a blank wall, not near the TV). Noise-cancelling headphones can help with auditory distractions.
7. Limit Screen Time: Although excessive screen time does not cause inattention, it can contribute to distractibility and being unmotivated to work on difficult tasks. Set reasonable limits on screen time and encourage breaks from electronic devices.
8. Encourage Physical Activity: Incorporate regular physical activities or exercise into the child’s routine. Exercise can help reduce restlessness and improve focus.
9. Practice sleep hygiene: Make sure your child or teen goes to bed within the same 30-minute window of time every night. Shut off electronics 1 hour before bed.
10. Healthy Eating: Make sure your child has a balanced diet. Breakfast appears to be the most important meal in terms of cognitive abilities and some research suggests that a high protein breakfast (e.g., eggs or meat) is best for attention and learning in children.

Does everyone who have inattention have ADHD?

No. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) – including inattentive type, hyperactive type and combined type – is a neurodevelopmental disorder. Meaning that it arises due to brain differences that occur in the perinatal or early childhood period. Most often, the brain develops differently because of the person’s genes and gene interaction with the environment. For this reason, you might hear of terms such as neurodiversity or neuroatypicality when discussing ADHD. If inattention is present after this early period in the brain development, it is typically acquired (for example due to a medical condition, or head injury) or can arise as a response to stress, trauma, and mental health disorders. Although experts are divided on this issue, this is not true ADHD. Aquired or later life inattention symptoms can nevertheless significantly impact functioning and deserve to be treated with the same tools as those available for ADHD.

In Summary

Inattention refers to the difficulty in maintaining focus, staying on task, or being easily distracted, often leading to trouble completing assignments or following instructions. It can manifest as a core symptom in conditions like attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) but may also occur independently due to various factors such as stress, fatigue, or health conditions.