In this two-part post we will discuss how to teach attention in occupational therapy. Part 2 focuses on how to teach attention to clients who may have difficulty with this skill.

Attention is an important skill that allows for productivity and safety as we go about our daily lives. But it is also a skill that may be difficult for some clients and therefore may need to be addressed during occupational therapy interventions. In part 1 of this two-part post, we provided an overview of the different types of attention and their significance to daily life. Once you have this foundational understanding of attention, it becomes much easier to design interventions that can assist clients in the development of this important skill.

Focus on the client.
In order to maintain the attention of a client, you also need to give the client your attention. If you are documenting, treating multiple clients at once, or talking with co-workers, you are not giving your full attention to your client and you will likely not be getting their full attention in return. Instead, speak directly to the client and maintain direct eye contact. Let them know that you are giving them your full attention throughout the session (or for as much of the session as you realistically can) and that you expect the same from them. If you work in a setting where you typically treat more than one client at a time, ask if you can possibly schedule a particularly distracted client for one-on-one sessions while you work on developing attention. The short-term decrease in productivity will likely payoff in the long run when the client makes better progress and is more satisfied with their overall occupational therapy experience.

Increase awareness of the environment.
In order to teach a client how to pay attention to their environment, you may need to increase their overall awareness of that environment. Ask your client to describe what they see around them, what noises they hear, what they feel, and even what they smell. By becoming more attentive to the world around them, they will become more actively engaged in the present moment and will be better able to focus their attention on the task at hand.

Set time limits.
Sustained attention is important, but it is also an acquired skill. Don’t expect your clients to learn this skill immediately, especially if you are working with children. A great way to practice sustained attention is to set a time limit. Purchase a simple timer or use the timer on your phone to set a realistic time limit for how long you would like a client to participate in a particular activity. When you are first starting out, it may be helpful to allow the client to watch the timer as it counts down so that they can see how much time is remaining for this activity, but as they become better at maintaining attention, you will most likely want to hide the timer so that it does not become a distraction.

Remove distractions.
Distractions will always interfere with attention. Because of this, a really great way to improve attention is to simply limit the number of distractions. Close the door, draw the curtain, turn off the music or TV, hide the extra supplies, or move the entire session to a quieter place. If you work in a busy clinic with multiple other therapists, this can be challenging, but try to find the quietest spot you can and perhaps even have your client positioned so their back is to the rest of the clinic (assuming there are no anxiety concerns that would make this inappropriate for your client). For kids, even seemingly innocuous things such as the color of the marker or the discomfort of the chair or even the clothes you are wearing can be a distraction, so identify these issues and make changes as needed. You will be amazed how much more effective your sessions will become when the distractions are removed.

Choose meaningful interventions.
As always, client participation will be greatly improved when the intervention itself is something that the client finds meaningful. Think about how much more engaged and attentive you are to tasks that you find interesting vs. tasks that are simply required. The same is true for clients. So if you are finding it difficult to maintain the attention of a particular client for the entire therapy session, reconsider your interventions. Perhaps a simple change to a more meaningful intervention will be all your client needs to sustain attention throughout the session.

Hopefully, by implementing these techniques and strategies you will be able to assist your clients in developing the important attention skills they need to succeed. Remember, with any new technique or strategy that you implement with clients, be sure to provide sufficient education that the client (or their caregiver) understands the strategies and can translate the skills to other daily activities that may be causing difficulty in their daily life.

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