Discover COCO THINKS and COCO MOVES, a memory coach on tablet and smartphone for children. Designed by Dynseo that helps you train your memory at your own pace.
Coco helps you stimulate the cognitive functions that are involved in the development of the child.
Dynseo and its team are very involved in the development of children and our goal is to allow all children to grow and learn in harmony and serenity. For some children the development is different, as in the case of children with autism.
Autism is a developmental disorder that can lead to difficulties in language, behavior and social relationships, perception, motor skills or cognitive skills. A child may have several of these difficulties, but not necessarily all.
Did you know that 1 in 160 children around the world has an ASD (autism spectrum disorder)? Each year, approximately 8,000 children are diagnosed with autism.
DYNSEO PRESENTS COCO THINKS and COCO MOVES
Today, Coco accompanies children with autism through their speech therapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, and psychometricians in special schools, at the office or for home help. All professionals who wish to subscribe to Coco can benefit from a monitoring platform. It is therefore possible to see the evolution and improvement of the autistic children in order to personalize their care.
COCO THINKS and COCO MOVES goes everywhere with you, because the application does not need Wi-Fi to work (Wi-Fi is only needed for updates).
Working with a person with autism is possible with activities adapted to their needs. In the COCO THINKS and COCO MOVES app, there are more than 30 games adapted to children to stimulate the different cognitive functions efficiently while having fun. Often autistic children are followed by several therapists, but we must not forget that they remain children and children need to play and have fun. Coco offers a solution that takes into consideration the “child’s side” (by offering fun games) and the “professional’s side” (by offering cognitive stimulation games). Everyone wins!
FORMS OF AUTISM
There are different forms of autism, so each child is different, with specific difficulties and needs. It is therefore important to personalize the work for each child. With Coco this personalization is possible, the application adapts to the child and his needs, but also to the professional and his therapeutic objectives.
Thanks to 3 levels of difficulty Coco can be used and adapted to each stage of autism.
Stage 1 – Autism
At this stage, the child has problems with social interactions, difficulty communicating or understanding others. He or she may also show a low investment in relationships and utter atypical sentences. Specific and restricted interests or repetitive behaviors can also be found.
Quizzle
Answer general knowledge questions.
With this game, you can stimulate conversation with the question-and-answer format.
You can choose to simply ask and answer the questions to stimulate the formulation of coherent and understandable answers. You can also ask for a more in-depth answer to stimulate dialogue.
The question-and-answer format also helps to understand the direction of the conversation, to give space to the other person and to listen.
With this game you also stimulate attention and comprehension to understand the question, and the memory to find the right answer.
Brainstorm
Place the words in the correct order to recreate famous sayings and proverbs.
With this game you can stimulate functional language (cognitive function) and social language (social communication).
The child must read and understand the different words on the screen. He must then create a mental image to try the possible combinations until he finds the right order.
With this game you can also work on social language. With proverbs, you can stimulate understanding and differentiation between literal and figurative meanings of words and phrases.
For example, the proverb “It’s raining cats and dogs” does not literally mean that to if you look outside cats and dogs will be falling from the sky, but rather that it is raining a lot outside.
The child can also learn proverbs and better recognize them in conversations and act appropriately.
Stage 2 – Autism
At this stage, the symptoms are more marked, we can observe an isolation of the child and difficulties to exchange with the others. The child may become frustrated when he or she cannot control the environment, if he or she cannot control a behavior or if there are too many external stimuli that are difficult to manage.
Simili
Find the duplicate image between the proposed images.
With this game you can stimulate an active search in the child.
The proposed images change with each round (10 rounds per game) so the stimuli present continue to change, and the child must adapt to the proposed images without knowing which ones will appear.
The task, however, remains fixed for the duration of the game; the child has a known context in which to play. To find the duplicate image, you can stimulate visual scanning and visual analysis to identify each image.
Finally, you can use this game together to maintain the relationship. The first one to find the duplicate image must touch it on the screen or say the name of the image.
Coco Cooks
Memorize the recipe or its ingredients.
With this game, you can stimulate the different cognitive functions and the social relationship at the same time.
In the first phase, the game shows the recipe, and the child must memorize the ingredients.
You can stimulate sequencing in the “recipe” mode (the child must remember the procedure) or verbal or visual memory in the “ingredients” mode (the child must remember the ingredients).
These skills are fundamental to creating and maintaining independence.
Finally, to maintain the relationship you can also look up a recipe on the game, memorize the steps or ingredients well and cook it for real!
Stage 3 – Autism
At this stage, the difficulties present are more severe. The child is unable to communicate with others or to form relationships. There may be fixed and repetitive ideas that the child cannot let go of. There may be difficulty in changing mental patterns and strong frustration when something does not go as planned.
Moles invasion
Type the moles as soon as they appear on the screen.
With this game you can stimulate activation and inhibition, since there are 3 different moles that require a different action: the “normal” mole must be touched once, the mole with the helmet twice and the mole with the glasses must not be touched.
The child must use his visual scanning to locate the mole and identify it. He must adapt his behavior according to the type of mole. The action to be taken is not always the same, so the child must change his mental schema to act according to the stimuli present.
This game can also be played in pairs, with the screen divided into two parts. You can use it to maintain the relationship with the child and share the game with him.
Puzzle Plus
Create puzzles with the pieces present.
Puzzles are easy games that children with more severe autism can also play.
In this game you can find different pictures or photos. The child can discover something new every day.
With multiple images available, it is easier to change the child’s focus.
Also, if a piece is not in the right place, the child can still move it to find the right solution. This allows the child to make several attempts and thus learn to manage his frustration.
AREAS OF FRAGILITY IN AUTISM
A child with autism may therefore experience a variety of difficulties, in different areas of development and with different intensity.
Coco can be adapted to the different stages of autism, but also to the cognitive functions you want to improve.
Social interaction
Children with autism have difficulty in social relationships because they cannot understand non-verbal language, irony, or sentence innuendo. They also have difficulty understanding the state of mind of other people or expressing their emotions.
For certain games, Coco allows two players to play. This mode of play allows the child to create relationships in a protected context and to learn strategies to better relate to others and manage emotions.
Shapebox
Find the right shape or color for the pattern.
In the two-player mode each player has a button on his side of the screen and the objects move to the middle of the screen. So you have to share the tablet and look at the same objects.
In one game, there are 10 shapes to spot according to the instruction, so each player can earn points.
The child can learn to accept losing points during the game, but winning at the end, so he or she can learn to lose and tolerate the frustration.
During this game, the child can show several types of emotions and can learn to manage them better.
Twins
Memorize the position of the cards and find the duplicate images like in the game “memory”.
In this game it is possible to play in pairs, taking turns. You can stimulate the sharing of the game, but also the rotation and waiting for the other (waiting for the other to think about his move and touch the cards to be turned).
Memory games are familiar to all children, and children with autism can play them with their friends.
Finally, thanks to this game you can stimulate other cognitive functions such as visual scanning, visual memory or immediate memory.
Interests and behavior
Children with autism have restricted interests that can become fixed ideas that the children cannot separate from. This fixation can lead to atypical behaviors as the person may have stereotyped movements or rituals (e.g., before exiting a doorway he or she must kick the floor). These fixations and rituals lead the child to have fixed and limited mental patterns. Enriching or changing the mental patterns used is very difficult for them.
Hunting Intruders
Find the odd one among the four propositions.
With this game you can improve language and classification by category.
The child needs to read and understand the four words, find the category that covers all three right answers and deduce from that the odd proposition. Words and categories change at every round so the child needs to change his mental schema and find new categories for the different sets of words.
You can ask to the child to find some other objects that are included in the category to start a discussion with him.
This game can be played with the multiplayer mode so you can play with the child, with the split screen.
ColorForm
Find the same shape or color as the pattern.
In this game the request can change at each turn (10 turns per game) so the child must adapt to the request.
The goal of the game can be to find the shape, the color or the shape and color together.
This activation or inhibition requires the child to change mental patterns several times and adapt to an external stimulus.
You also stimulate visual perception, attention, hand-eye coordination and reflexes. All these cognitive functions help the child to enrich his mental patterns and find new strategies.
Cognitive
Children with autism may also have cognitive delays, which manifest themselves in problems with executive functions such as attention, memory, logic and planning. Cognitive impairment is not present in all forms of autism, but when it is present, it is important to monitor the child.
ColorMind
Remember the sequence of colors.
The colors are easy to recognize, so you can use this game with children with severe cognitive disabilities.
First, you visualize a sequence of colors, the child must remember this sequence and reproduce it.
With this game, you can stimulate attention and memory.
In addition, each color is associated with a different sound: you can also stimulate auditory discrimination or auditory memory.
Finally, this game helps to increase memory capacity because the difficulty of color combinations to memorize increases according to the child’s success.
Coco at the beach
Find the best route to return the ball to Coco.
To move the ball, tap on the right arrows on the right. Depending on the possible directions you will have only the arrows indicating those directions. This adaptation will allow this game to be used with children with more severe cognitive problems.
With this game you can stimulate the visuo-spatial construction since the child has to imagine the movements of the ball in space.
In this game, it is possible to ask for clues: you can stimulate the use of feedback and help the child to adapt to the instructions and clues they receive.
ADAPTATION AND FOLLOW-UP
Working with a child with autism is not always easy since we have to consider different areas of development and the severity of the disorder’s changes for each situation. Coco also allows for adaptation thanks to 3 levels of difficulty: the child can use the application at his level, but also the application can follow the evolution of the child (for example the child can start at the easy level and move to the medium level once better skills are reached). The games are designed to follow the development of children according to their age, skills and needs.
Furious cards
Remember the order of the cards.
The images are simple to allow the child to recognize them well.
Depending on the level, there are different numbers of cards to memorize (3, 4 or 5). At 3-4 years old the memory capacity is 3 elements, at 4-5 years old is 4 elements and at 5 years old is 5 elements.
This game allows to adapt the level to the child’s abilities and to follow his evolution.
This game also stimulates memory and other cognitive functions. For example, if the child has good visual skills, he can focus on the pictures. If they have good verbal skills, they can memorize the names of the pictures.
Carnival of the Animals
Match each animal to its natural habitat.
In the easy level, we only ask you to differentiate between land, sky and sea animals (three possible habitats).
You can stimulate a first basic classification and look for common characteristics (aquatic animals have fins for example).
But beware of exceptions, for instance the crab lives in the water but has no fins.
In the medium and difficult levels, there are eight possible habitats. In these levels, major identification and analysis is required. The child should not only focus on the characteristics of the animals, but also on the characteristics of the habitats.
MONITORING THE LEARNING OF AUTISTIC CHILDREN
In the COCO THINKS and COCO MOVES program, there is also a function that allows you to see the evolution of the child over time. You can see the results obtained and the time spent in each game, to have feedback on the work done. This feedback can be useful during therapy to see if the child is reaching the goals, at school to see the child’s level or at home to follow the child’s development.
THE SPORTS BREAK BENEFICIAL FOR AUTISTIC CHILDREN
In the COCO THINKS and COCO MOVES app, you will also find physical activities. Every 15 minutes of screen time the application stops and offers the children physical games.
This sports break has several advantages for children, especially if they have autism.
The use of screens is very useful and loved by children, but a prolonged use can become negative. With Coco, the child can take a dynamic break, so he learns to let go of the tablet to do a physical activity while having fun at the same time.
All physical activities are designed for children. With games of balance or dance the children learn to know their body and to adapt to the environment. For children with autism, this can be very useful to increase the known motor patterns and to have a better self-perception (especially when there is hypo or hypersensitivity).
In COCO MOVES, there is also the “mime an emotion” game where the child has to reproduce the emotion shown on the screen by Coco. The child can first learn to give a name to the emotions, to recognize them on himself and then on others. In addition, there is an audio description in the game that explains the emotion and what we feel in our body.
RECOGNIZING EMOTIONS WITH COCO MOVES
In our educational app COCO THINKS and COCO MOVES, you can also learn to recognize your emotions with the game “Mime an emotion”, in the Coco Moves part. By clicking on the question mark, you can learn to better recognize the different emotions.
This game to mime emotions is also accessible in the break, after every 15 minutes of screen. In fact, every 15 minutes, children are asked to choose a physical activity to take an active break when you can mime the emotions.
SURPRISE
You are surprised when you are amazed at something, at a person or an object.
It is that feeling when you receive an unexpected gift. So in this situation, you have your eyes and mouth wide open and you cannot wait to open your gift.
CONFUSION
When you are confused you are usually lost because of something that happened. You can even forget the name of a person or the name of an object.
To mimic confusion, you can frown your eyebrows, shrug your shoulders or even form a big ‘O’ with your mouth.
INSPIRATION
Inspiration is what happens when you imagine and create things just by thinking of it. Like when you are drawing, writing, or playing with your toys and making up stories.
When you’re feeling inspired you wrinkle your eyes, you scratch your head a little and you smile when the idea comes.
AFFECTION
Affection is something you feel when you are moved by something, when you are thinking positive thoughts about a friend, a family member or a pet.
Here you can smile and think about good time. You can give a hug or kiss someone, tell your classmate that you like them.
BOREDOM
Boredom happens when you don’t care for what you are doing, you want to do something else like talking to your friends and not listen to the person in front of you.
You can blow really loudly and roll your eyes. You can also wiggle in your chair.
PAIN
Pain is a feeling you don’t like, you usually feel it when you hurt yourself, and that is physical pain.
It can also be when you are missing someone or something very much.
To express pain, you can wrinkle your eyes and grit your teeth. You can also touch the part where you are hurt.
Here are all the data sheets of the games presented, with the cognitive functions stimulated by game
All users of the COCO THINKS and COCO MOVES program can receive the data sheets for accompanying an autistic child by sending an email to [email protected]
I want to receive the complete guide to accompany autistic children with COCO THINKS and COCO MOVES
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