Research on the practice of massaging the head of a baby with hot water and ointments in Ghana. By Dzamesi Yael (Ph.D. in Science Education)
Attention span - Primary 1 and 2.
(Primary 1, 4 children, ages: 6 to 7 years old. Primary 2, 4 children, ages: 7 to 8 years old).
Abstract.
Observation is a crucial ability in learning. In Primary 1 and 2 it hindered the learning process of the children since they could not observe well the details in pictures or objects and to answer correctly on questions that related to them. It had a great negative effect in math and science studies.
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One of the characteristic behaviors of the children was that whenever they were asked to relate to or observe something in front of them, such as a picture or an object, they stopped to look at it after few seconds. Then, they raised their head up and looked in the air to some invisible corner. There their eyes would remain fixed on that invisible corner for a long time. It looked as if they were looking for an answer in one of the many drawers in their brain. It did not matter how many times we told them that the answer was in the picture or the object in front of them, they could concentrate on it only for few seconds. It had a great negative effect in math and science studies.
Childhood development experts say in general that a reasonable attention span to be expected from a child is 2 to 3 minutes per year of their age. These are the period of times that a typical child can maintain focus on a given task.
Average attention span [144]:
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2 years old: 4 to 6 minutes.
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4 years old: 8 to 12 minutes.
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6 years old: 12 to 18 minutes.
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8 years old: 16 to 24 minutes.
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10 years old: 20 to 30 minutes.
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12 years old: 24 to 36 minutes.
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14 years old: 28 to 42 minutes.
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16 years old: 32 to 48 minutes.
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The few second attention span demonstrated by the children in Creative Foundation School is far shorter than the expected attention span of a 2 years old baby. What could have caused it?
People who suffer from ADHD have short attention span. Their have low brain activity in early visual processing as was found by Electro-encephalo-gram (EEG) test [139]. This finding can give possible explanation on the cause of the short attention span the children in Creative Foundation School suffered from. The second place on the head of a baby that the hot water is applied intensively is at the back. The hot towel is pressed against the primary vision area of the occipital lobe in the brain. There is high probability that it impairs the early vision processing that demands focusing and paying attention in an observation.
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