Attaining, sustaining, and focusing attention: intervention for children with ADHD

An alternative intervention approach for children with ADHD, a "situational-discourse-semantic model," is described. This approach examines the interactions between environmental factors and a student with ADHD and determines the roles of these factors in the establishment of a student's "deficit." Once this is accomplished, selected factors can be manipulated to increase the student's ability to attain the attention needed for academic tasks, to sustain such attention during academic tasks, and then to focus attention on key task elements so that a more effective environment for learning and communication is achieved. The application of the model's principles is illustrated through case study descriptions of therapy interactions with a young boy with ADHD.