Timocco develops motor, cognitive and communication skills

Each of Timocco’s 50+ games has a variety of fine-tuning options that isolate and develop specific movements and skills for varying levels of ability.
As kids pop balloons, zap aliens or try to catch falling fruit, they don’t seem to notice just how much skill-building practice they’re getting.
How did Timocco’s team of interdisciplinary pediatric specialists sneak oodles of skills into our games? Read on to find out.

Bilateral Coordination

Depending on the optional settings of each game, the child may be required to work with two hands - together in a synchronized manner or in coordination with one another in order to pass to the next level in the game. This action of both hands working together improves the child’s bilateral coordination.

Body Awareness

The child must be aware of the position his/her hands throughout each game. The child’s hand movements are represented on the screen, which helps them understand how their movements influence their performance.

Hand-Eye Coordination

The child must maintain a constant awareness of his/her hands’ position in relation to the visual prompts on the screen. The child observes and coordinates hand movements according to the visual prompts, while constantly adjusting and reacting to the changing pace and location of the stimuli.

Midline Crossing

Some of the games challenge the child to cross the mid-line of their bodies with their hands. In one game, for example, the child must collect objects from one side of the screen and use the same hand to place them in a basket on the opposite side, thus crossing the body’s vertical mid-section.

Motor Control and Accuracy

The Timocco gaming platform requires the child to control their hand movements in order to reach specific targets. The presented target in many games challenges the child to improve accuracy while refining and controlling their movements according to visual feedback on-screen.

Motor Efficiency

Timocco games provide feedback regarding a child’s successful movement - this allows the child to continue to develop and improve the efficiency of their movements in order to reach successful feedback more frequently and consistently.

Posture and Balance

By adjusting the Range Of Motion setting, the overall movement demands of the games can be varied to encourage greater or lesser movement and postural adjustment. For instance, objects located at the edges of the screen encourage the child to challenge their balance by re-adjusting their center of gravity. Additional challenges can be incorporated to further develop the child’s ability to maintain balance and effectively weight shift - such as seating the child on a physio ball or foam log throughout the game.

Range of Motion

When playing Timocco, the child should stand or sit in a position that allows maximum range of motion. The child’s goal is to reach for objects located around the screen, an activity that challenges and improves the his/her range of motion. All games have a range of motion setting that allows adaptation to each individual child’s ability, whether the child is standing, or sitting in a wheelchair. Range of motion can also be adjusted by varying the child’s proximity or distance from the camera.

Reaction Speed

Every game requires the child to react to new stimuli at a changing pace. The therapist can adapt this to meet each child’s specific needs and pace of progress. By grading the level of difficulty, the child has the opportunity to improve reaction times in an encouraging and experiential environment.

Upper Body Strength

While playing, the child must hold their hands up in the air and to the sides, working against gravity to improve muscle tone and strengthen the upper extremities and core. Additional challenges such as weighted balls can further development.

Cooperation

Two-player games aimed at enhancing cooperative skills teach the child important social skills, requiring them to take turns and follow instructions, while exposing them to opportunities to gradually challenge their level of frustration and develop coping skills.

Joint Attention

Joint Attention is a critical skill essential for development. In two-player-based Timocco games, the child must acknowledge and recognize the existence of a counterpart player as they share the same virtual space, encouraging identification of intention, gaze and language comprehension.

Attention

The child learns how to direct attention towards the relevant stimuli and to maintain concentration throughout the activity. Playing Timocco has proved to be helpful for children with ADHD to become more attentive and focus not only during the games, but also after the session.

Categorization

The child learns to use classification to understand an object’s attributes. For example, in one game, the child must collect fruit by extending their hand upwards and then select the matching basket in which to place the fruit.

Cause and Effect:

Various Timocco games teach the child the significance of cause and effect, aiding their understanding of personal actions and developing abstract thinking as they learn how their movements influence virtual stimuli.

Early Learning:

Timocco provides the therapist with tools for early learning of numbers, letters, colors and quantities.

Executive Function

Cognitive control, reasoning, problem-solving, sequencing of steps and utilizing working memory are essential skills that can be learned and utilized during game-based tasks. In order to complete games successfully, the child is required to exercise his/her ability to plan, control and execute concepts of metacognition. Many games also incorporate other Executive Functions such as: Shifting - moving between different situations and exercising flexible thinking - balancing the different demands of the game across the different steps. Inhibition - the ability to appropriately stop one's behaviour according to the demands of the situation or task - filtering responses to irrelevant stimuli in the game. Initiation - knowing when to start a task - knowing when and how to respond to stimuli in the game. Self Monitoring - assessing, organizing and internalizing feedback of one's success in a task, based on the requirements of the task, and adjusting and improving response, pace and movements according to feedback regarding success throughout each game.

Visual Perception and Discrimination

The child is able to practice and strengthen visual perception and discrimination skills by recognizing, identifying and distinguishing between different colors, shapes, numbers and quantities, as well as between distractors and relevant stimuli. Each game requires adapted responses to specific stimuli in order to achieve success.

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