Our bodies and minds are very complex, and they must deal with stimulation through all of our senses.
Think about how well you function when you are sick.
That will help you understand how sometimes our bodies can be overwhelmed with information and need to shut it all out.
That is what happens to many people all the time.
Causes Of Attention Problems Some people have biochemical or neurological problems with their bodies.
It is just part of their makeup and personality.
They tend to have problems moderating any impulses they have.
They skip from one topic or stimulus to another, never seeing or understanding how they are related.
Their view of the world is that everything tends to be separate and disconnected, so it is difficult for them to understand behavior patterns, patterns in academics, or even learning about cause and effect in social situations.
When we are ill, our bodies cannot make those efforts to override distractions.
People with chronic or long-term allergies have the same problems, but not to the degree that a severe illness would bring about.
Children with allergies or chronic colds do not feel well and are affected by simple and/or small stimuli.
Many people may be easily distracted by colors, moving objects/shapes, sounds, changes of atmospheric or wind conditions, smells, fluorescent lights or other stimuli their nervous systems may have difficulty organizing.
They may not seem to be affected by attention problems, because they can come back to the topic or focus they had before it occurred, but they are to some degree.
It takes conscious effort and work to regain their focus or override the stimuli distracting them.
Some people have difficulty "sorting out" noises that are important from a constant array of noises that are not important.
An example is when you are having a conversation with someone in a crowded, excited crowd.
This is called having an auditory figure ground problem.
The person can't separate out the "figure" (what is important, or your voice and comments) from the "ground" (background noise of everyone else talking).
Sometimes the attention is due to physical maturation of the nervous system.
The neurons in a child's brain are quite numerous, but the "depth" of the connections is shallow.
As we age, we lose many neurons, but the connections are deep and allow greater focusing and maintaining of attention.
How To Deal With Attention Problems There are many ways to cope or compensate for attention problems.
Probably the best known is medication, but this is really only for those who have the neurological/biochemical imbalances creating attention problems.
Many people might have their diets checked for food allergies or nutritional deficiencies.
Many children are very sensitive to dairy, wheat, corn, nuts, soy, food additives and colors.
A coping technique is to sit or work in an area with limited access to stimuli.
Typical examples are: sit facing a wall or corner when trying to study or concentrate, not having music or a TV audible in the room, clearing the room of all extraneous clutter, having no one nearby to talk to, etc.
A coping technique for visual figure-ground problems is to sit in the front of the room, preferably right by the teacher's desk.
For auditory-figure ground, the person might learn to stand closer to the person (s)he talks with and constantly maintains eye contact and watches the person's lips (for speech reading), or in a classroom situation the child might need headphones and/or background music (soothing instrumental music only) to drown out distracting sounds.
Knowing the cause of the attention problems make it easy to find ways to deal with them.
It takes time to train a child to compensate for what happens with his/her body.
When the child feels success as a result of the techniques, (s)he will try harder on his/her own and learn other ways to compensate.