Ask Sarit: I’m working with an ADHD child and want to introduce Timocco, at the same time I’d like to avoid a situation where the child is “inside” the screen and detached from reality. How can I achieve this?

Timocco’s virtual gaming environment works on attention skills and gross motor movement together.  In fact, therapists using Timocco have reported that using Timocco at the very beginning of a session gets children to be more focused throughout the remainder of the therapy session.

Why? Timocco is designed to limit games to short work periods to prevent ADHD kids from getting ‘sucked’ into the game or tv screen. Then when a child finishes their computer related tasks, I have the child move on to start other activities in the room.  Typically, after being active for 10-15 minutes the child is less hyper and more than willing to move on to another, less active, task.

While playing Timocco the child develops awareness about their own personal space and the borders of their own body.  Throughout each game the child learns to control or regulate their movements and be more precise and accurate in each motion.

For example playing the bubble bath game the child has to pop the green bubbles and ignore the red bubbles – requiring the child to ignore distractions and exhibit self-control.  The learning is done through the child’s own body so it’ll be easier for the child to carry over the skills and apply them to different scenarios.

Games that challenge a child’s regulation, motor control and planning skills will also reduce hyper-active behaviors. One such game is the train tracks game where the child chooses, drags and places the train track pieces so that the train can get from A to B.

Other games aimed at older kids like space aliens, cars and the bulls-eye game can challenge the child in several ways.  The aliens game is fast-paced and it’s goal is to improve split attention, shifting and re-organizing towards a new mission/task.  The other two games are a bit slower paced and work on sustained attention (persistence in completing a task) while regulating movement and motor control.

Once the child becomes more proficient in regulation ,organization , motor control, awareness around the limits of their own body, curbing impulsivity and the other skills described above , we can apply the skills acquired in the virtual environment to other contexts (daily routine activities).