Boost your little one’s attention with these toys
The fact that you are here means you probably already know how important attention and listening skills are for learning all skills. If you want a bit more information, check out my previous blog post here.
So let’s dive into how to support these skills…
What does ‘good attention’ look like?
We want to know that what we are doing actually makes a difference to children’s attention and listening skills. In order to do that we need to know what we are measuring. There are a few measures we can use but to make it easy here are the top 2 I look for as a speech therapist when working with and supporting little ones.
Duration. We are looking for children to be able to focus on an activity for 2-3 minutes x their age (e.g. a 2 year old should be able to focus for 4-6 minutes).
Shared attention. We are looking for little ones to share attention with us, by this I mean focusing on the same thing as us. We know they are doing this when they look in the direction we are pointing or looking, or they turn towards us and back to an object to check we are focusing on what they are doing.
Give me the good stuff! What toys can I use?!
Here are my top toy recommendations to increase the length of time your little one can focus for…
This one is for children with emerging attention skills. So this is for you if your little one flits from activity to activity or they get in the zone with their own play and it is difficult for you to share focus with them.
If that sounds like your little one, look for short. Sharp. Toys that have a sensory element to them. A bag of spinners like these ones, or spinning tops that light up can be great. This is because you can do one after the other, and while the spinner itself may only last a few seconds, by the time you have sequenced through a few, your little one has stayed focused on the activity for a number of minutes.
To make the most of this tip you will want to have a bag/ box of these toys to hand, so you can do one-after-the-other and don’t have to break the flow (trust me, I’ve been there rummaging around trying to find the next toy and by the time I emerge my little learner has moved on!).
Emerging attention toys:
Noisy shape sorters Dinosaur ball popper Balloon Car Click clack track
These toys are for children with more established attention and listening skills. Maybe your little one is turning to their name, maybe they are looking at you when they are playing, but perhaps this isn’t happening yet with other children and they can still sometimes flit from toy to toy.
If this sounds like your little one then turn taking toys are the way to go. Shared attention and focus is built into these toys, and they teach the skill of sustaining focus even when we aren’t doing (waiting your turn!).
If this is the first time you are trying a toy like this I recommend building up to playing it ‘properly’. When I introduce turn taking games, I usually take my turn every 3-7 times my little learner has their turn. Gradually I build this up until we each take our turn every other time.
Turn taking toys:
Pop-up T-rex Monkey drop Jitterbug fishing Smelly Wellies
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