Attention test for kids — free, in the form of a game

Three things called by one word

Each gives a different picture in the test and different advice for the evening.

Holding attention — A long, monotonous task: signals come rarely and you have to wait. Missed signals measure how quickly attention drifts away.
Resistance to distractors — A signal surrounded by other, misleading elements. The time difference between the matching and the misleading version shows what cutting off the background costs.
Holding back an impulse — A task where most signals call for a response and one calls for restraint. Responses when there should be none measure impulsivity, not inattention.

Six things before the start

Attention tasks react to conditions more than memory tasks do. Without these six points the result describes the room, not the child.

Close the door and silence the phones
Every sound during the waiting task turns into a missed signal. This is the commonest reason for a low result.
Check the child is not hungry or sleepy
Attention tasks are boring by design. On the last of a child's energy they measure tiredness, not attention.
Show where the key is
A few seconds to place the hand. Hunting for the key mid-task later looks like a slow response.
Say that speed is not the point
Children often race the clock and click before the signal. That raises the number of early responses and spoils the picture.
Do not comment during the test
Neither “faster” nor “concentrate”. Attention in this task is exactly what we are measuring, and any prompt interrupts it.
Do the whole thing in one go
A break in the middle changes the conditions. If the child has to stop, it is better to start again another day.

Important

If you suspect the child has attention difficulties beyond schoolwork, this test will not answer that question. Diagnoses in this area are made by a specialist, through a procedure that includes an interview, observation, and questionnaires for the school and the parents.

What the patterns mean

Four pictures that come up most often, and the shortest way forward.

Many misses, few errors

Attention drifts, but the child is not impulsive. The work goes into the length of the block and the breaks, not into restraint.

Few misses, many early responses

The opposite picture: the child acts faster than they think. A one-second pause before answering helps here.

A large gap when distractors appear

Cutting off the background is expensive. This is the most practical result: rearranging the desk works from the first evening.

A very uneven result

Swings within one task usually mean tiredness, or that something interrupted. Worth repeating another day.

What the test does not settle

Limits we state plainly, so that nobody leaves with a ready-made conclusion.

Question	Answer
An ADHD diagnosis	No — that is a clinical procedure, not a task in a browser
Comparison with the rest of the class	No — the result only makes sense against the child themselves
The cause of the difficulty	No — it shows a picture, not the reason behind it

Take the test now

The short test is three game-like tasks, one of them about attention and restraint. No sign-up, and the result appears right away.

Open the free test

short test, about 7 minutes · no sign-up · result right away

What it is built on

Author: Natalia Lubenets — co-founder and head of methodology at Space Memory

The attention tasks rest on classic paradigms from cognitive psychology — the same ones used for years in research on attention and inhibition. Space Memory dressed them in a space setting so the child gets through without boredom, and cut them to a quarter of an hour.

Parents' questions

Will this test detect ADHD?

No, and it is not meant to. What it can do is give you a picture that is easier to take to a specialist than the sentence “does not pay attention in class”.

The child did poorly here but can play games for hours. How?

A game answers every move and holds attention for the child. The test task is monotonous on purpose, because monotony is where you see how long attention lasts without a reward.

Does the result depend on clicking speed?

Partly, which is why it is counted together with the number of errors. Fast clicking without hits does not give a good result.

Can the test be taken on a phone?

It can, but a bigger screen and a keyboard are safer. On a small screen some errors come from aiming with a finger.

How often should it be repeated?

No more than once a month. With shorter gaps, practice counts for more than attention does.

What if the result is low in all three tasks?

First repeat it another day, at a better hour. If the picture holds, talk to the class teacher and check whether they see the same in lessons.

Want to work on attention with a coach?

In attention training the child works in short blocks and moves the limit a few minutes every week: 90 minutes once a week, in a group of 5–10. The manager will tell you the terms and the timetable of the next group.

Request a call

The test is free and screening only. It makes no diagnosis and does not replace a specialist's consultation.

Attention test for kids — see which part of attention is weak