Early Childhood: Attention and Self-Control

The Marshmallow Study

• Popularized study at Stanford looked at children’s ability to delay instant gratification for a later reward
  • Initially, Mischel was more interested in the coping strategies kids employed to not eat the marshmallow than in potential predictions based on how long child waited
• Study focused on delay of gratification – resist current temptation for a later reward
• Found correlation with those who “waited” had later academic and employment success
• However, while this study is popular, results have been disputed and studies have not been able to replicate

Self Control and Regulation

• Thought in research that “self-control is like a muscle” , you need to build and strengthen , and it can get fatigued
• Study of “Marshmallow experiment” was popularized in the 80s – 90s. Even taught explicitly to teachers, on sesame street – the importance of self-control and delay of gratification
• Focus has shifted to broader concept self-regulation of emotions, cognitive processes, learning as opposed to deprivation and discipline

Attention

• Child’s ability to ‘pay attention’ improves over the preschool years, relative to toddlerhood, but still under development
• “Pay Attention!”
  • Request usually implies focusing on one thing (e.g. teacher’s voice), and not another (e.g. noises in the hall).
  • Attention = multifaceted construct
  • Selective attention: ability to tune into certain things while tuning out others
  • Sustained or focused attention: maintaining that focus over time

Attentional Development in Early Childhood

• Ability to attend to information critical foundational skill for all learning, aspects of school readiness
• General rule of thumb: 2 - 3 minutes x age
  • Can often focus on tasks of interest for longer periods of time
• Individual differences
  • Some can sit for longer periods of time others have greater difficulty (think, circle time in preschool)
• Mediated by parental and environmental factors

Attention in Preschool

• Preschool Games that promote sustained or focused attention:
  • Eye-contact exercises – sustained attention improved when children needed to make eye contact with teacher before leaving the group in circle time
  • Stop-go activities – freeze dance • Using specific signals - beats, two claps
  • Chants/Phrases to refocus - “crisscross apple sauce” ; “123 eyes on me” for selective attention ; refocusing
  • Play, Movement – brain breaks, Go Noodle
  • Games-Simon says, red light green light, head-shoulders-knees-toes (also has executive functioning components – response inhibition etc. )
  • Tasks with end-goals, puzzles, timers/speed tasks (clean up in 4 min)

Long Term Implications

• In a longitudinal study, parents rated their 4-year-old child’s attention span and persistence.
  • Children who were better able to maintain focused attention and who persisted even when faced with difficulties had higher math and reading achievement at age 21 and a greater chance of college completion by age 25
• A 2005 longitudinal study of 1000 preschoolers showed that children ranked low in attentional control had poorer social skills and peer relationships in 1st and 3rd grade

Individual Differences in Attention

• Differences in attention in part to heritable characteristics (nature), yet also influenced by experience (nurture)
• Ability to focus and sustain attention in preschool children has also been linked to differences in families’ economic circumstances
• Young children from low-income families may have less effective selective attention
  • May be due to:
  • Impact of chronic stress
  • Heightened arousal
  • Sleep, nutrition
  • Routine consistency

Can Attention Skills Be Taught?

• Neville and her colleagues at University of Oregon’s Brain Development lab developed a training program for children from low SES using games that allowed them to practice attention skills.
• Her program also trained parents to promote their child’s attention skills.
• After 8 weeks, she found positive changes in the way these children’s brains functioned and in their language skills, nonverbal IQ, and social skills, as well as a reduction in problem behaviors.
• Parents also benefitted from the program, showing reduced stress and greater ability to maintain conversations with their children.