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Parenting |
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Article |
Focus is Key to Success in School |
 For
many kids, staying focused and paying
attention in school is a challenge. Trying
to keep kids on task and engaged can be a
never-ending quest for teachers and parents
as well. Changing habits or behaviors is
difficult; wanting to change and being able
to change are two different things,
especially for children, who have good
intentions but short attention spans.
"To change, a child needs to keep his or her
focus on what to do and why to do it - not
an easy task for kids in a world filled with
distractions," says psychologist Dr. Steve
Levinson. Levinson has spent two decades
researching why change is so hard. He
discovered that people need some mechanism
to keep their attention sharply focused on
their good intentions in order to achieve
their goals.
His research led him to create the
MotivAider,
a small electronic device that can be set to
vibrate at varying intervals to remind
people to manage their behavior. The
compact, battery-powered device weighs less
than 3 ounces and will easily fit in a
pocket, or can be worn like a pager. No one
but the child using it need ever know it's
there.
An ideal tool for keeping children focused
and on task, the MotivAider helps children
develop good behaviors and modify unwanted
behaviors. The key to using the device is to
attach a personal message to the vibration.
In a classroom setting, the personal message
could be "look at the teacher" or "pay
attention." Then, whenever the device
vibrates, the student will be reminded to
focus on the teacher or on the task at hand.
The device can be set to deliver the
vibration as often as desired. As behavior
improves, the device can be adjusted to
vibrate less often.
Parents and teachers can use the device
themselves to motivate change in children.
For example, in a situation where the adult
strives to give positive attention for good
behavior, teachers and parents can use the
MotivAider to remind them to periodically
praise the child for constructive behavior.
The MotivAider has also been used
successfully with autistic children as well
as children with ADD and ADHD. Jason Garner,
senior managing supervisor at the Center for
Autism & Related Disorders, reports that he
recommends the MotivAider to help facilitate
attention skills in an academic setting. "We
use it to facilitate on-task behavior,
social interaction skills and overall
independence skills," he says. "The device
has helped kids that I directly supervise
from Hawaii to the Middle East." |
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and more quickly when they have the
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