Is Your Lack Of Attention Messing Up Your Education?

Paying attention in school isn't always so easy. Now, researchers at the Universities of Nottingham and Bristol have found that inattentiveness at the age of 7 may be linked to an inability to perform well during high school exams.

Researchers discovered that for every one-point increase in attention span at age 7, there was also a two to three point reduction in participant's GCSE examinations and a 6 to 7 percent increased likelihood of not achieving a minimum level of "good" GCSE grades (A TO C) at age 16.

"Teachers and parent should be aware of the long-term academic impact of behaviors such as inattention and distractibility," said lead study author Kapil Sayal, in a news release.

The study had parents and teachers complete detailed questionnaires with over 11,000 children participating in the study. They were 7 years old to assess a variety of different behaviors that included inattention, hyperactivity/ impulsivity and oppositional/detainment problems. This data was compared with the children's academic achievements by looking at their GCSE results at age 16.

Findings revealed that the relationship between inattentiveness at the age of 7 and GCSE scores was linear, with each one-point increase in attention symptoms increased by the risk of worse academic outcomes across the full range of inattention scores in the sample.

More information regarding the findings can be seen via the journal  American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.