CC82 - Attention, Learning and your Child with Jacky Peile

Chatabout Children Podcast with Sonia Bestulic

Attention is a very basic skill for human beings, so basic that we don’t usually talk about it.

But for some, attention is not a skill that comes easily and this problem can emanate early in childhood. This is where Occupational Therapists like Jacky Peile enter. They help children with attention difficulties live a better life. In this first episode of a two-part series, we chat with Jacky about attention, learning, and your child.

Jacky Peile established EarlyLinks in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire in Australia in 2010. Today, she leads a team of occupational therapists who support children, teens, and young adults with anxiety and sensory-processing difficulties through practical strategies that make their daily life easier.

Key Learnings

• What attention is and how it develops early in life.
• How attention problems arise in childhood.
• How a shift in a child’s social environment (i.e. pre-school to school) affects attention
• The different subtypes of attention: shared attention, sustained attention, selective attention, alternating attention, and divided attention.
• The relationship between motivation and attention.
• How a child develops divided attention.
• How parents can identify attention issues in their child and when they should get professional help.
• What sensory-processing difficulties are and how they are related to a child’s ability to sustain attention
• The “Purple Mat” technique to teach your child selective attention

Jacky’s questions for parents who want to test children for attention difficulties before consulting a professional:

• Can your child maintain attention to something that is important or motivating to him or her?
• Can your child achieve basic short periods of attention?

So sit back and enjoy this episode of the Chatabout Children Podcast with Sonia Bestulic as she interviews Jacky Peile.

Listen to Part One and Part Two of the Attention, Learning and your Child episodes.

Links:

Chatabout Children

Flourish for Mums by Sonia Bestulic

Early Links

Connect with Jackie on LinkedIn

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