Exercise to Promote Attention and Impulse Control: Waiter in Action

We’re introducing a new exercise for encouraging attention and impulse control in adults that we’re sure you’ll love: Waiter in Action!

What does it involve?

Users take on the role of waiters and have to keep track of the restaurant’s orders. They must serve each customer the dish they ordered, paying close attention, since the dishes keep changing.

In other words, they have to stay focused on a task constantly while shifting their focus of attention as things change. They also have to adapt to changes in the order of the exercise.

All of this makes it a great exercise for encouraging attention and impulse control.

In the following video, we show you an example of how to work with this exercise:

What does this activity work on?

Waiter in Action works on:

• Alternating attention,
• selective attention,
• sustained attention,
• inhibition.

Ways to work with this game

Waiter in Action is a game, and as such it can be used in two ways:

Play by levels

The game is divided into levels, with level 1 being the easiest and level 9 the hardest.

The user moves up or down a level automatically based on their correct answers and mistakes. The professional can also choose the phase manually.

2. Customizing the activity

You can also create custom phases to adapt them to each person’s specific needs.

2.2 Parameters

You can also set some of the activity’s parameters, such as:

• The number of items on screen: number of diners and number of dishes,
• alternation,
• the variety of items,
• the number of target stimuli,
• the correction criterion: totals, errors, and omissions,
• number of stimuli,
• how long the stimuli stay on screen,
• the maximum number of errors.

2.1. General settings

You can choose other general settings such as:

• The number of exercises,
• the time limit,
• whether or not to show a visible timer for the activity,
• whether or not to include an inactivity alert,
• editing the instructions.

Languages available for this exercise for encouraging attention and impulse control

You can use this activity in Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese.

Why did we create this activity?

This activity was created thanks to a suggestion from María Cristina Rosa, coordinator of the Neuropsychology service at ADEMO-CREN (the Multiple Sclerosis Association of Huelva and its Neurological Disease Rehabilitation Center). Rosa and her team often use Animals Restaurant, the children’s version of Waiter in Action, with their patients with neurological after-effects, and they asked us to create an adult version.

Children’s version

As we just mentioned, Waiter in Action has a children’s version called Animals Restaurant. In this version, children have to give each animal its favorite food. They have to pay close attention, since the animals change their tastes from time to time.

If you enjoyed this exercise for encouraging attention and impulse control, you may also be interested in these articles:

“This article has been translated. Link to the original article in Spanish:”
Ejercicio para fomentar la atención y el control de impulsos: Camarero en acción