Attention training is an approach to very early child education that places emphasis on self-regulation.  This form of attention operates in close coordination with working memory in many cognitive tasks.  Many studies have shown that children between the ages of about 3 and 7 develop a brain network that allows them to regulate their thoughts and emotions (see Rueda, Posner & Rothbart, 2004 for a review).   Studies of adults have shown that a common brain network related to self regulation can be activated by a variety of tasks that require people to resolve conflict between different response tendencies.  An example is having to name the ink color of a conflicting color work (e.g. to say red to the stimulus BLUE) (Bush, Luu & Posner, 2000); Fan et al 2003).

   There is evidence that specific training can influence this network in children with attention disorders (Klingberg,  Forssberg & Westerberg, 2002 ) and in normal children (Posner, Rothbart & Rueda, in press).  So far these studies have involved only a small number of persons, only relatively brief amounts of training and only immediate improvement.   However, there is already some evidence that the underlying neural network is modified by the training and generalizes beyond the trained material (Olesen, Westerberg & Klingberg, 2004; Posner, Rothbart & Rueda, in press).  Copies of these papers are available on this website.  More studies are needed to understand how these training methods work and their limits in amount of improvement and duration.

   The particular exercises used in the intervention on this website are adapted from NASA studies training monkeys for work in outer space (Rumbaugh & Washburn, 1995).  They place emphasis on training high level attention needed for self regulation.  The original child training study was for a brief five day period and has been confined to children of 4 and 6 years of age. The exercises are fine for children of this age and seem to be enjoyed by them.  It is expected that longer periods of training will produce better improvement in executive attention.  

   Documentation of the effects of these specific exercises is limited so far, but the attached paper has some evidence on this (Posner, Rothbart & Rueda in press).   The attached scripts explain how the exercises can be presented to children.   In addition, the movie contained on this website provides an overview of the exercises for teachers or other professionals.  

References 

Bush, G., Luu, P. & Posner, M.I.  (2000).  Cognitive and emotional influences in the 
anterior cingulate cortex.  Trends in Cognitive Science, 4/6:215-222.

Fan, J., Flombaum, J.I., McCandliss, B.D., Thomas, K.M. & Posner, M.I  
(2002).  Cognitive and brain mechanisms of conflict. Neuroimage, 
18:42-57.

Klingberg, T., Forssberg, H. & Westerberg, H.  (2002).  Training of working memory in 
children with ADHD.  Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 24:781-
791.

Olesen PJ, Westerberg H, Klingberg T (2004)Increased prefrontal and parietal activity after training of working memory Nature Neuroscience 
 7 (1): 75-79 

Posner, M.I. & Rothbart, M.K. & Rueda, M.R. (in press)  Brain Mechanisms of High Level Skills  To appear in Antonio M. Battro, Kurt W. Fischer, & Pierre Léna (Eds.), Mind, Brain, and Education. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

Rueda, M.R., Posner, M.I. & Rothbart, M.K. (2004) Attentional control and self regulation.  In R.F. Baumeister & K.D. Vohs (Eds). Handbook of Self-Regulation: Research, Theory, and Applications. New York: Guilford Press Ch. 14, 283-300

Rumbaugh, D.M. & Washburn, D.A.  (1995).  Attention and memory 
in relation to learning: A comparative adaptation perspective. In 
Lyon G.R. & Krasengor, N.A. (Eds.), Attention, Memory and Executive 
Function (pp. 199-219). Baltimore MD:Brookes Publishing Co.