Chapter 7
Using Time Samples to Look at
Attention Span
“Teaching is not about transferring knowledge. It is about
learning, and the one who learns the most is the teacher.”
©2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Factors Influencing
Attention Span
• Environment – Stimulating but not too much
• Developmental competency – Cognitive
readiness to focus attention
• Novelty – New things catch attention for a while
• Peers – Influenced by interests of peers
• Sensory integration difficulties – May interfere
with attention
©2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
TIME SAMPLES
• Method of recording what area of the room a
child is in at a given time
• Form set up with free choice areas in blocks
down the left side of the page and time blocks
across the top
• At a predetermined time, the recorder writes
down each child in that area and repeats it over
the course of half an hour or more
• Infants and toddlers – more appropriate to use
anecdotal or running records
©2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Time Sample
©2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Uses of the Time Sample
Advantages
• Gathers information on
the whole group
• Gives quantitative
information
• Indicates each child’s
play choice and
interests
• Shows child’s preferred
playmates
• Can show adults’
position in the room
Disadvantages
• No details are recorded
• Does not capture children
moving during recording
time
• Time-intensive for
recorder
• Makes inferences that
may not be accurate
• Not useful in
infant/toddler classrooms
• Requires long period of
free-choice time
©2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
What to Do with It
• File in Class File because it contains
information on all the children in the class
• Information on individual children must be
copied or summarized to be useful
©2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
LOOKING AT
APPROACHES TO LEARNING
• Born to learn – Innate drive to learn
• Dispositions – Approaches to learning
– Ready
– Willing
– Able
• Piaget & kinds of knowledge
– Physical: The way the world works
– Logico-Mathematical: Relationships, cause and effect,
measuring, counting
– Social Conventional: “Rules of the tribe,” manners,
social conventions
©2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Piaget’s Stages of
Cognitive Development
©2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Vygotsky’s Ideas about Learning
• Attention (and learning) are affected by
social interactions
• Approximate success with help from a
more skilled peer or an adult
• Use of private speech to talk through a
difficult process
©2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Observing Attention Span of
Infants and Toddlers
• Sensitive periods when the brain is most
receptive to certain kinds of learning
• Brain is constantly making connections
between past experiences and new ones
• Brain development is negatively affected
prenatally by the mother’s poor nutrition
and drug use, post-natally by trauma and
neglect
©2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Aspects of Cognition
• Attention – Focusing
• Memory – Recognition, association
• Brain development – Early experiences transform
the brain, readying it for later learning
• Playful curriculum – Opportunities to explore
• Multiple intelligences – Many ways of learning,
thinking, and expressing
• Hemisphericity – Strengths of sides of brain
influencing the way of thinking
©2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
HELPING ALL CHILDREN WITH
ATTENTION SPAN
• Attention Deficit – high distractability and
impulsive behavior
• Perception Disorder – one or more
sensory organs (sight, hearing, smelling,
touch) are impaired, preventing the
reception and or interpretation of stimuli
• Cultural differences in approaches to
learning – Affected by the stimuli of the
environment or norms of behavior
©2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
TOPICS IN OBSERVATION
Attention Span and Autism
• Autism – Pervasive developmental
spectrum disorder
– Spectrum: May range from barely noticeable
to debilitating
– Early diagnosis
– Affects social interactions
– Attention span is affected; may be extremely
short or extremely long
©2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Standard Related to
Attention Span
Division for Early Childhood Recommended
Practices)
Practice 2: Child-focused interventions
• Adults design environments to promote children’s safety,
active engagement, learning, participation, and
membership.
• Physical space and materials are structured and adapted
to promote engagement, play, interaction, and learning
by attending to children’s preferences and interests,
using novelty, using responsive toys, providing adequate
amounts of materials, and using defined spaces.
©2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.