Toddlers should be able to play with a single toy or engage in a single activity for a few minutes without too much trouble.

Paying attention to the same thing for several minutes is crucial to your toddler’s development because it allows them to practice a single skill many times over. Repetition is extremely important for learning new skills.

Attention span for 2 year olds is about 4-6 minutes and continues to grow steadily throughout childhood. Let’s look at some ways you can help your toddler sustain their attention.

3 Tips for helping toddlers pay attention a little bit longer

Tip 1 - Remove distractions

Your first job is to remove distractions for your child. Paying attention can be hard! When attempting to sustain your toddler’s attention, first consider your environment.

If you are in the living room with tons of toys in sight and the TV on, it’s going to be much harder for your child to keep their attention on a single thing. Try eliminating these distractions so there are fewer things to divert their attention.

Setting up the environment for success goes a long way. This may mean putting some toys or items away somewhere where they can only be accessed with an adult’s help, rather than making them available to your toddler all day long. 

Tip 2 - Start with activities your child enjoys 

Think about what your child likes to play most often. If you are trying to hold their attention, it’s best to do so at first with toys or activities they prefer. Start with a goal of paying attention for one minute. Then increase to two minutes, and slowly add increments of time until your child can pay attention for five minutes in a row.

Keeping track with a watch or a clock will be extremely helpful for tracking your child’s progress. Once they can play with their favorite toy or do their favorite activity for about five minutes, then see if your child can look at pictures in a book about their favorite toy, color pictures of their favorite toy, or play with a similar toy for the same amount of time.

Tip 3 - Practice during bath and snack time

Finally, I highly recommend practicing during snack and bath time. These are typical daily activities where your child is happy and confined to one space, two great natural opportunities to hold your child’s attention for several minutes.

During bath time, see how long your toddler can play with their bath toys as you talk about what is happening in play. Support sustained attention during snack time by talking about how your food tastes, describing what it looks like, or playing with the food on your toddler’s tray.

Repeat these activities day after day, and try to set new records for how long your toddler can sustain their attention. Remember that your toddler’s attention span will vary from day to day. Keep practicing on a regular basis, even if some days are much harder than others.

Download our at home activities guide to supporting toddler’s attention ↓

Helping toddlers pay attention activity

In this activity, you will consider how to help your child pay attention to an activity longer. Print our activities guide above to follow along or write your answers on your own paper 😀

Pick an activity that your child likes to do.

This is some kind of game that they like to do alone or that they play with you. It might be putting objects in a container, flipping through a book, rolling cars, banging pots and pans, or something like that. Watching a screen does not count. 

Describe the activity that your child likes to play here: _______________.

Next time your child plays this activity, time how long your child pays attention for and write the time here:_______________.

Observe:

What is going on in the environment that may be impacting how long they will pay attention for? Circle any distractors that you observe below.

• Large amounts of toys around your child

• Toys are too easy to access and child often grabs a new toy

• TV is on

• Music is on

• Tablet/ Computer is on

• People interrupt your child frequently while they play

• People nearby are engaged in a distracting activity

• Other: _______________.

Adjust:

Chose at least one of the distractors you identified above that you will eliminate the next time your child plays with activity. Write down the distractor you are eliminating here:_______________.

Next time your child plays this activity, time how long they pay attention for and write it here: _______________.

Download the PDF activities guide with ways to support toddler’s attention ↓

You May Also Like These At Home Speech Therapy Tips And Activities:

• Helping toddlers learn to communicate with less frustrations

• Using daily routines to grow toddler’s communication skills

• Supporting toddlers through transitions

• Supporting turn taking and sharing for toddlers 
  

Created In Collaboration By: Stephanie Keffer, MS CCC-SLP Stephanie Burgener-Vader, MA CCC-SLP Melissa Sartori, MS CCC-SLP Yvette Faire-Bostick, MS CCC-SLP

 © 2020-2022. Stephanie Keffer, MS CCC-SLP. All Rights Reserved.

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