Focus is Key to Success in School

For many kids, staying focused and paying attention in school is a challenge. Trying to keep kids on task and engaged can be a never-ending quest for teachers and parents as well. Changing habits or behaviors is difficult; wanting to change and being able to change are two different things, especially for children, who have good intentions but short attention spans.

"To change, a child needs to keep his or her focus on what to do and why to do it - not an easy task for kids in a world filled with distractions," says psychologist Dr. Steve Levinson. Levinson has spent two decades researching why change is so hard. He discovered that people need some mechanism to keep their attention sharply focused on their good intentions in order to achieve their goals.

His research led him to create the MotivAider, a small electronic device that can be set to vibrate at varying intervals to remind people to manage their behavior. The compact, battery-powered device weighs less than 3 ounces and will easily fit in a pocket, or can be worn like a pager. No one but the child using it need ever know it's there.

An ideal tool for keeping children focused and on task, the MotivAider helps children develop good behaviors and modify unwanted behaviors. The key to using the device is to attach a personal message to the vibration. In a classroom setting, the personal message could be "look at the teacher" or "pay attention." Then, whenever the device vibrates, the student will be reminded to focus on the teacher or on the task at hand. The device can be set to deliver the vibration as often as desired. As behavior improves, the device can be adjusted to vibrate less often.

Parents and teachers can use the device themselves to motivate change in children. For example, in a situation where the adult strives to give positive attention for good behavior, teachers and parents can use the MotivAider to remind them to periodically praise the child for constructive behavior.

The MotivAider has also been used successfully with autistic children as well as children with ADD and ADHD. Jason Garner, senior managing supervisor at the Center for Autism & Related Disorders, reports that he recommends the MotivAider to help facilitate attention skills in an academic setting. "We use it to facilitate on-task behavior, social interaction skills and overall independence skills," he says. "The device has helped kids that I directly supervise from Hawaii to the Middle East."

To learn more about how and why the MotivAider works, visit www.MotivAider.com.

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