Workshop for developing attention and cognitive abilities

Attention and self-regulation difficulties can emerge in children already at a pre-school age. These do not necessarily lead to a diagnosis of ADHD but should nevertheless be treated promptly in order to favour smoother admission into primary school.

This book offers a didactic and psychoeducational workshop for children aged 3-4. The programme is divided into 21 sessions, in which an entertaining guide, Lino the mouse, accompanies pupils in their journey of discovery and learning about rules on their surroundings and on interpersonal exchanges, co-operation, the passing of time, the most effective ways for dealing with stimuli and attentive resources.

Each didactic unit comes with a selection of illustrated practical worksheets, with levels of difficulty graded according to age, and is preceded with a brief overview of its objectives and the materials and procedures to be used during the programme.

The activities and games offered aim to:

• develop social skills;

• perceive and internalise space-time concepts;

• develop sensory-perceptive abilities through exploration of the senses;

• develop initial awareness of the body schema;

• train auditory, sustained and selective attention skills.

Based on rigorous research results, the workshop, preceded by a training programme related to observation techniques and intervention strategies, is designed for any nursery school teacher seeking to encourage development of attention and self-regulation.