Study Reveals The Science Behind Children's Short Attention Span

This insight helps explain why kids often struggle to focus on relevant details, making task completion challenging.

The reasons behind young children's frequent struggles with focusing on particular tasks have been clarified by a recent study. It was found by researchers that although children as young as kindergarten are able to comprehend and carry out instructions, their natural tendency is to explore their environment.

The four, five, and six-year-old youngsters in the study showed a tendency to scatter their attention widely, gathering too many details that divert them from their main objective. The researchers claim that this behaviour is caused by their innate curiosity and the constraints of their working memory at this developmental stage rather than a lack of comprehension or attention span.

According to a release by the Ohio State University, it now appears that kids distribute their attention broadly either out of simple curiosity or because their working memory isn't developed enough to complete a task without "overexploring."