One factor often overlooked with some children who have auditory attention problems relates to loss of focus because of the difficulties in decoding and comprehending messages. This factor is the difficulty level of the language used. That is, the child may have a language based processing problem and the child does not understand the vocabulary or concepts presented in the message. The information may be unfamiliar because of lack of experiences or difficulties with auditory processing in early life that led to the child not having a sufficient language base for understanding the material.
To simulate this type of problem in attention and focusing due to lack of knowledge and familiarity with the words, concepts, and information in a message, the following text was chosen because the poem presented contains very unfamiliar language and may not be well known to some readers. Furthermore, to make it even more difficult, irrelevant words have been added to simulate background noise and there is no spacing between words to add a time or temporal processing deficit to the simulation. See if you can figure out the poem.
Onetwashasbrilligandtheslithycowstoves
Didlookgyreandgimblewaterinthewabestreet
Allmimsylightsweretheborowgroveshouse
Andthemomedogsrathscatsoutgrabe.
Well, you did figure out the poem? How about we improve your temporal processing and add the spaces between words. Here, try again.
One twas has brillig and the slithy cows toves
Did look gyre and gimble water in the wabe street
All mimsy lights were the borogroves house
And the mome dogs raths cats outgrabe.
Have you figured out the poem yet? Is it about the cow jumping over the moon? Or is it about water in the street? Well, let’s try an FM system. In this simulation, the relevant words are made larger, and the irrelevant words smaller.
One twas has brillig and the slithy cows toves
Did look gyre and gimble water in the wabe street
All mimsy lights were the borowgroves house
And the mome dogs raths cats outgrabe.
Still can’t figure it out? The words are in English; olde English. It is a poem written by Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland and related works. The title of this poem is Jabberwocky. They lyrics for Jabberwocky were retrieved on-line from www.varatek.com/scott/jaber_frames.html in December of 2000
So, it is difficult to know to what you should attend when the vocabulary is unfamiliar and strange. Helping a child with an auditory attention problem become familiar with the vocabulary and concepts the teachers may use in presenting information in class can be a great help for improving focusing, attending and maintaining attention.
Copyright © December 2000 (Lucker and Wood)
All Rights Reserved
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