Most three-year-olds do have an attention span of about 10 minutes - an average of about 3 minutes per year of age is normal.
That's interesting, I'd wondered. Do you know what the source of this is and what it actually means? Here's what I'm getting at. I don't think it's the case that 3yos typically change activity after 10 mins, is it - IME they will all play with Lego or with the sandtray or some other favourite until torn away. *But* this doesn't mean they're working systematically towards the same goal all the time - their attention can wander a lot, but still within the scope afforded by this favourite activity. So I'm wondering how you measure a child's attention span. Is it the time that the child is focused on a particular task, e.g. building some particular target Lego model, or the time the child spends continuously with Lego, or what? Would a child who starts building a car, gets distracted after 8 mins by pieces falling off, plays at making noises in the lego piece boxes for 4 minutes, then decides to make a house, does that for 8 mins, and finally wanders off to colour, be counted as having an 8 minute or a 20 minute attention span? Perhaps if there's ambiguity over this, it might account for the annoying response of HelloBaby's DS's teacher.
