title: Parents' and Teachers' Perceptions of Abnormal Attention Span of Elementary School-Age Children.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To determine teacher and parental perception of minimal expected sustained attention span during various daily tasks among elementary school children.
  
  
  METHODS
  54 parents and 47 teachers completed the attention span questionnaire (AtSQ) that was developed for this study. The AtSQ consists of 15 academic and leisure tasks that require a child's sustained attention. The study focused on third and fourth graders in Israel.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There was a high degree of variability among teachers and parents in their responses to the AtSQ. The expected attention span of children as judged by parents was higher and more varied compared to teachers, and higher for girls than for boys.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results indicate poor agreement in cutoff values for sustained attention span between teachers and parents and within each group.
authors.affiliation: The ADHD and Learning Disorders Clinic, The Edmond and Lily Safra Children's Hospital, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Israel Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Yael
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Segal-Triwitz
authors.affiliation: University of Jena, Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: Louisa M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Kirchen
authors.affiliation: The Psychology Department, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
authors.forename: Tal
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Shani Sherman
authors.affiliation: The ADHD and Learning Disorders Clinic, The Edmond and Lily Safra Children's Hospital, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Israel.
authors.forename: Miriam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Levav
authors.affiliation: The ADHD and Learning Disorders Clinic, The Edmond and Lily Safra Children's Hospital, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Israel.
authors.forename: Yael
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Schonherz-Pine
authors.affiliation: The ADHD and Learning Disorders Clinic, The Edmond and Lily Safra Children's Hospital, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Israel The Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Israel.
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kushnir
authors.affiliation: The Child Study Center, Schneider Children's Medical Center of Israel, Petah Tikva, Israel.
authors.forename: Raya
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ariel
authors.affiliation: The ADHD and Learning Disorders Clinic, The Edmond and Lily Safra Children's Hospital, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Israel Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Doron
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gothelf
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents; D000066553:Problem Behavior; D000070777:School Teachers