Limited attention span compared to developmental age

Provision and or strategies

• Use child / young person’s interests as a motivator and to extend engagement.
• Implement regular, short breaks.
• Plan for differentiation.
• Use chunking and break tasks down into smaller, manageable steps.  
• Consider the use of visual timetables.
• Consider backward chaining – Break the overall task down into smaller steps. The adult helps the child with all but that last step with the child / young person being taught to do the last step themselves. Once the last step is learnt, the child / young person and adult work backwards learning other steps of the sequence until they can do the entire task.
• Use the child / young person’s name when giving instructions.
• Ask the child / young person to repeat back what activity they are going to do.
• Consider use of timers, so they know they only have to focus for a comfortable amount of time.
• Plan individualised timetables.