About 60 families learned how to promote their children’s intellectual development and diagnose attention-deficit disorders during a workshop at Bangkok Hospital Pattaya.
The April 26 “Brain Fitness” seminar featured activities and a lecture from BHP’s Matthew and Chayannitti Brady, who spoke on using playtime to promote development. The talk allowed parents to exchange experiences and voice concerns over slow development.
Bangkok Hospital Pattaya organized activities for children and a lecture for parents to promote their children’s intellectual development.
The couple showed parents how to use various activities to determine if their child has an attention-deficit disorder. The most-common yardstick is whether a young child can sit still and focused on one activity for 15-20 minutes. However, the Bradys said, duration alone is not an absolute indicator.
Parents should change activities every 15-20 minutes and, if the child cannot focus, address possible causes for the lack of focus, including having too much or too little sleep, too much sugar, too much television or even food allergies.
Many children, they said, can watch TV for long periods, but television viewing should be limited to 30 minutes, as too much watching can impede interest in reading, they said.
Parents can check attention skills by having young children fill a bottle or two of water or, in slightly older kids, have them bring a small spoon or a yellow bowl from the other room.
They noted that storytelling is another activity that can lengthen a child’s attention span, but parents should frequently ask their kids questions about the story to check their comprehension.
