Adult attention tasks can be used in speech therapy to help a patient focus on an activity or object. These therapy activities may be particularly useful when working with patients who have sustained an acquired brain injury or who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Attention tasks are used to work on the cognitive deficits necessary for language and social skills. In the following portion of this document you will find a variety of activities that can be used in therapy sessions. For each activity, there are suggested modifications based on the severity of the client’s attention deficit. It is important to remember that many of these clients may have difficulty completing more than one task at a time. It is also vital to remember to reward each correct response as well as look for opportunities to incorporate attention tasks into everyday conversation so that they become part of the client’s way of communicating.
Attention is a complex topic, as everyone’s attention is different. The amount of time we can stay focused on a task, our ability to listen, or the behaviors that distract us are all parts of attention. As speech-language pathologists, we use attention tasks to help increase focus when working with children and adults.
This task can be used as part of a larger session or as a quick warm-up activity to get your client’s mind into speech therapy mode. It can also be used as an informal assessment tool to help you determine what kind of attention difficulties your client is having.
Ask the patient to count how many words in a sentence begin with a particular sound. For example, “Count how many words begin with /s/ in this sentence: She sells seashells by the seashore.” The patient should respond “seven.”
Ask the patient to count how many words in a sentence contain a particular sound. For example, “Count how many of these words contain /l/: label, large, careful, table, ice.” The patient should respond “four.”
Ask the patient to name as many objects as possible that begin with each phoneme (sound). For example, you would say /k/, and the patient would respond with “carrot, kite, key…”
Ask the patient to name as many objects as possible that contain each phoneme. For example, you would say /sh/, and the patient would respond with “shirt, fish…”
There are many types of attention tasks that you can do in order to improve your focus and concentration. This article will discuss some of the most common attention tasks that adults with speech and language impairments use during speech therapy sessions.
In adults, attention tasks are often used as a screening tool to determine whether the patient has suffered a traumatic brain injury from an accident or other cause. These tests may also be used as a diagnostic tool for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or other disorders that affect attention span.
These exercises are based on the Stroop test, which is widely used in clinical settings. The Stroop test can be administered in clinical settings by trained speech therapists and requires specialized materials. This version of the test is not diagnostic and should not be used to determine the presence of any mental health condition.
This version of the exercise is based on the Stroop Effect, which is widely used in clinical settings. The Stroop Effect can be administered in clinical settings by trained speech therapists and requires specialized materials. This version of the test is not diagnostic and should not be used to determine the presence of any mental health condition.