The Tablet in Psychomotricity: coordination, body schema and tonic regulation
📑 Summary
- Why digital technology has its place in psychomotricity
- 5 concrete advantages of the tablet in sessions
- Which psychomotor functions to work on with a tablet?
- Pathologies and affected populations
- How to integrate the tablet into your practice
- The 5 mistakes to avoid in digital psychomotricity
- Case studies: 3 profiles, 3 concrete results
- Focus: The Rolling Ball, the ultimate psychomotor tool
- The tablet between the office, school, and home
- How to choose the right digital tool?
Psychomotricity is, by nature, a discipline of the body in motion. The psychomotrician works with their hands, their gaze, balls, motor pathways, balance games. In this context, the idea of introducing a digital tablet may seem paradoxical. Yet, digital technology does not replace the body — it enhances it.
The tablet offers the psychomotrician a unique complementary tool: a support that objectively measures coordination, motivates children reluctant to traditional exercises, extends stimulation between sessions, and — in its balance version — transforms the screen into a tool for global motor skills.
This guide supports you in integrating digital tools into your psychomotor practice, from the office to home, through school.
1. Why digital technology has its place in psychomotricity
The psychomotrician is the specialist in the body-mind relationship. Their intervention focuses on coordination, body schema, tonic regulation, spatiotemporal structuring, and executive functions in their bodily dimension. Traditional materials — hoops, balls, courses, sensory games — remain the irreplaceable foundation of this practice.
But physical materials have limitations that psychomotricians are well aware of. The first limitation: the difficulty of objectively measuring coordination. Observing that a child "coordinates better" is a valid clinical assessment, but difficult to quantify in a renewal assessment. The tablet, on the other hand, records reaction time, gesture accuracy, number of errors, and performance consistency.
Second limitation: the motivation of certain profiles. Children with ADHD, who represent a significant portion of the psychomotrician's clientele, often oppose structured exercises. The playful format of the tablet diffuses this resistance and transforms therapeutic work into a motivating challenge.
Third limitation: the continuity between sessions. A child seen once a week in psychomotricity does not practice oculomotor coordination on the other six days. The tablet allows for prescribing short daily exercises that maintain stimulation and accelerate progress.
💡 Did you know? Several studies published in Human Movement Science and Research in Developmental Disabilities show that tablet-assisted interventions significantly improve eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). Immediate visual feedback accelerates motor learning by reinforcing the perception-action loop.
2. The 5 concrete advantages of the tablet in psychomotricity sessions
- Objective measurement of coordination. Digital exercises quantify reaction time, gesture accuracy, movement regularity, and the number of errors. This data transforms subjective clinical observation into actionable metrics for your assessments. You can show parents that a dyspraxic child has reduced their pointing time by 40% in 8 weeks — a much more convincing argument than "they are improving".
- Motivation of resistant profiles. Children with ADHD, in opposition to traditional exercises, spontaneously engage in tablet games. The playful format, positive feedback, and visible sense of progress transform "I don't want to" into "one more level!". This motivation is a major therapeutic lever that the psychomotrician can strategically exploit.
- The balance board: the tablet becomes a bodily tool. With a balance support, the tablet transforms into a true psychomotor tool. The child must tilt the tablet with both hands to guide a virtual ball. This device simultaneously works on bimanual coordination, tonic control, hand and wrist proprioception, and eye-hand coordination. The body is at the center of the exercise.
- Home and school exercises. The psychomotrician can prescribe short daily exercises (10 minutes) that the child performs at home or as part of the IEP at school. The AESH and parents become therapeutic relays with a simple tool to use. The continuity of stimulation between sessions accelerates motor acquisitions.
- Bridge to school learning. The eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills practiced on the tablet are direct prerequisites for writing, reading (saccadic eye movements), and spatial orientation. The psychomotrician thus has a tool that bridges bodily rehabilitation and school requirements, a central argument in educational teams and the ESS.
3. Which psychomotor functions to work on with a tablet?
The tablet does not cover the entire psychomotor field — and that's normal. It excels in certain functions and should be complemented by traditional materials for others. Here are the areas where it provides real added value.
Eye-hand coordination
This is the flagship area of the tablet in psychomotricity. Visual tracking exercises, precise pointing, eye pursuit, and directed saccades engage eye-hand coordination with a measurement precision that is impossible to obtain through direct observation. The difficulty progresses by increasing speed, the number of targets, and the complexity of trajectories. This work is directly transferable to writing and reading.
Fine motor skills and gesture control
Drag-and-drop exercises, screen tracing, precise touching, and pressure control engage the intrinsic muscles of the hand, finger dissociation, and fine gesture control. On the balance board, the work extends to the wrists and forearms, with demanding tonic control. These exercises complement the manipulation of real objects done in sessions.
Bimanual coordination
The balance board is the ideal tool for working on coordination of both hands. Both hands must cooperate to tilt the tablet, with asymmetric control depending on the desired direction. This work is particularly relevant for dyspraxic children and patients with poorly established laterality or tonic asymmetry.
Spatial-temporal structuring
Orientation games, grid navigation, trajectory reproduction, and temporal sequencing work on structuring of space and time. These functions, often impaired in praxic disorders and ADHD, are essential prerequisites for school learning (geometry, reading tables, work organization).
Embodied executive functions
Motor planning, inhibition of an automatic gesture, flexibility in choosing a motor strategy: these "embodied" executive functions are at the heart of psychomotricity. Go/no-go type games, gesture alternation exercises, and spatial planning courses engage these functions in an engaging and measurable format.
Tonic regulation and relaxation
The tablet can serve as a support for tonic regulation: pressure dosage exercises (pressing hard vs softly), controlled slowness (following a target at reduced speed), and postural maintenance (balance board in equilibrium) work on voluntary tonic control. Some psychomotricians integrate these exercises into calming sequences at the end of the session.
🎯 Key functions in digital psychomotricity
- Oculomotor coordination (tracking, pointing, saccades)
- Fine motor skills and digital dissociation
- Bimanual coordination (seesaw)
- Tonic control and force dosage
- Spatial and temporal structuring
- Motor planning and gestural sequencing
- Motor inhibition and flexibility
- Indirect graphomotricity (preparation for writing)
4. Pathologies and affected populations
Psychomotricity addresses various populations, with a pediatric predominance in private practice. Digital tools adapt to each profile thanks to the modularity of exercises and levels of difficulty.
| Population | Pathologies | Targeted functions | Application |
|---|---|---|---|
| Children 5-7 years | Developmental Coordination Disorder (dyspraxia), psychomotor delay, graphic disorder | Oculomotor coordination, fine motor skills, graphomotricity | COCO + ROLLING BALL |
| Children 7-10 years | ADHD, ASD with motor disorders, laterality disorder | Inhibition, bimanual coordination, spatial structuring | COCO + ROLLING BALL |
| Adolescents | ADHD, persistent dyspraxia, learning disorders | Executive functions, processing speed, planning | CLINT + ROLLING BALL |
| Seniors | Parkinson's, fall prevention, motor decline | Coordination, reaction time, postural balance (via seesaw) | SCARLETT + ROLLING BALL |
The common point among all these profiles is the need for motor repetition. Motor learning requires hundreds, even thousands of repetitions to automate a gesture. Weekly sessions alone cannot provide this dose. The tablet, used daily at home, multiplies the number of repetitions and accelerates the automation of the motor patterns worked on in sessions.
5. How to integrate the tablet into your practice
The tablet integrates into the psychomotricity session as one tool among others, not as a replacement for physical materials. The key is dosage and complementarity.
Step 1: Identify the role of the tablet in your therapeutic project
For each patient, define what the tablet brings that physical materials do not cover: objective data for assessment, motivation for a child in opposition, home training between sessions, or specific work on oculomotor coordination. The tablet is only relevant if it meets an identified need.
Step 2: Integrate in session as a station in the course
The best way to introduce the tablet is to place it as a station in a psychomotor course. For example: balance course → tablet station (oculomotor coordination, 5 min) → ball exercise → seesaw station (Rolling Ball, 5 min) → relaxation. This integration into the flow of the session avoids the trap of "all tablet" and maintains the overall bodily dimension.
Step 3: Utilize the seesaw in session
The Rolling Ball is the most relevant device in psychomotricity. Place the tablet on the support, and the child must tilt the tablet to guide the ball through a course. Start with simple courses (right/left), then increase complexity (mazes, obstacles, time constraints). This device transforms the tablet into a proprioceptive and tonic tool, closely aligned with psychomotor practice.
Step 4: Prescribe at home and at school
Prescribe 10 minutes per day of targeted exercises: 5 minutes of oculomotor coordination on a standard tablet + 5 minutes of seesaw if the family has the device. Train parents or the AESH in its use. Write a simple and visual program that the child can follow independently.
Step 5: Utilize data in your assessments
The platform's statistics directly feed into your psychomotor assessments. Oculomotor coordination curves, fine motor skills scores, and reaction times document progress objectively. This data complements your clinical observations and strengthens your renewal requests to prescribing doctors.
"I integrated the Rolling Ball into my motor pathway, like a station among others. The children love it. And I finally have quantitative data on bimanual coordination that I couldn't measure before."
6. The 5 errors to avoid in digital psychomotricity
Digital technology in psychomotricity raises legitimate questions. Here are the most common pitfalls and how to avoid them.
Spending 30 minutes of the session on the tablet, to the detriment of overall body work. The child remains seated, eyes glued to the screen, without postural engagement or involvement of the whole body.
Limit tablet use to a maximum of 10-15 minutes per session, integrated as a station in a broader psychomotor pathway. The tablet is a supplement, never the core of the session. The moving body remains the absolute priority of the psychomotor therapist.
Choosing memory or logic games that do not engage any psychomotor function. The child works on pure cognition, which is more the domain of the neuropsychologist than the psychomotor therapist.
Favor exercises that engage movement: oculomotor coordination (pointing, target tracking), fine motor skills (precise drag-and-drop, tracing), and especially the seesaw that engages the whole body. Complement with spatial structuring exercises that have a bodily dimension (orientation, positioning).
Allowing the child to use the tablet slumped in a chair, head tilted, elbows unsteady. The working posture directly impacts the quality of the movement and can reinforce poor motor patterns.
Monitor the working posture as you would for a drawing exercise. Tablet tilted at 30°, elbows stabilized, sitting position adapted to the child's size. For the seesaw, check that the child is standing or sitting with good postural alignment. Posture is an integral part of the psychomotor exercise.
Offering the same level of difficulty to a 6-year-old with a developmental coordination disorder as to a 9-year-old with ADHD. The profiles are radically different and the objectives too.
Individually calibrate each exercise. A child with a developmental coordination disorder will work on large targets with a long response time. A child with ADHD will work on rapid inhibition exercises with distractors. The same tool, but diametrically opposed settings. Test in session before prescribing at home.
Rejecting digital tools by principle in the name of the bodily philosophy of psychomotricity, or conversely adopting them without reflection. Both extreme positions harm the patient.
Think "continuum". The body is at the center. The tablet is an extension of the gesture. The balance is a bridge between the two. The digital data objectifies what your clinical eye perceives. The tool serves your expertise; it does not replace it.
7. Case studies: 3 profiles, 3 concrete results
How does digital technology integrate into the reality of the psychomotor therapy office? Here are three concrete cases.
Context: Léa is in the last year of kindergarten and has not acquired the writing gesture. She holds her pencil in a palmar grip, the letters are illegible, and the coloring consistently goes outside the lines. The psychomotor assessment reveals a TDC (visuospatial dyspraxia) with a marked deficit in oculomotor coordination, fine motor skills well below her age, and a fragile body schema. The start of first grade is approaching, and the parents are worried.
Digital protocol: The psychomotor therapist integrates COCO and the Rolling Ball into the weekly sessions. In the session (45 min): classic motor pathway (20 min) → COCO tablet station for oculomotor coordination (8 min) → Rolling Ball station for bimanual coordination (7 min) → relaxation and body schema (10 min). At home, the mother accompanies Léa for 10 minutes of COCO (oculomotor coordination + spatial awareness) every evening.
Result after 12 weeks: Léa progresses spectacularly in oculomotor coordination. The tracking of targets, catastrophic at the start, is now within the low norm for her age. The Rolling Ball has significantly improved the tonic dosage of her hands: she spontaneously shifts from a palmar grip to a three-finger grip on the pencil. The psychomotor therapist transmits the progress data to the occupational therapist who takes over for fine graphic work.
📊 Measured results: improved oculomotor coordination score by 55% (from 32/100 to 50/100), pointing time reduced by 42%. Bimanual coordination score (Rolling Ball) improved by 38%. The teacher notes that Léa now accepts graphic activities, a major behavioral change.
Context: Adam is diagnosed with combined type ADHD. In psychomotor sessions, he is restless, impulsive in his movements, and abandons exercises as soon as they become difficult. The psychomotor assessment highlights a deficit in motor inhibition, correct overall coordination but fine motor skills disrupted by haste, and a very variable reaction time (sometimes too fast, sometimes absent). Adam is opposed to traditional structured exercises.
Digital protocol: The psychomotrician leverages Adam's motivation for video games. COCO is introduced with inhibition exercises (playful go/no-go type), selective attention (target identification among distractors), and gesture dosage (precise touch without haste). COCO's sports break every 15 minutes channels Adam's need for movement. The Rolling Ball is used at the end of the session as a calming exercise: guiding the ball slowly requires tonic control that soothes agitation.
Results after 10 weeks: The most notable change is Adam's engagement. For the first time, he asks to continue the exercises rather than stop them. Parents report that he accepts the 10 daily minutes on COCO "because it's a game." Motor inhibition progresses: Adam makes fewer false alarms on go/no-go exercises. The Rolling Ball at the end of the session has created a calming ritual that the psychomotrician was unable to establish before.
📊 Measured results: inhibition errors (false alarms) reduced by 45%, reaction time variability reduced by 30%, gesture dosage score (touch precision) improved by 28%. Home adherence was 85%, a remarkable result for a child with initial opposition ADHD.
Context: Robert is being monitored in psychomotricity for a balance disorder and rigidity of the upper limbs related to his Parkinson's disease. He has already fallen twice in 6 months. The psychomotrician works on dynamic balance, coordination, and tonic regulation during sessions. Robert lives with his wife and is motivated to "do exercises" between sessions, but does not know what to do independently.
Digital protocol: The psychomotrician introduces SCARLETT (cognitive exercises adapted for seniors, no stressful timer) and the Rolling Ball in a seated position to work on bimanual coordination and tonic control of the wrists and forearms. In session: classic balance work (20 min) → Rolling Ball station seated (10 min) → SCARLETT for spatial orientation and reaction times (10 min). At home, Robert and his wife practice 10 minutes of SCARLETT in the morning and 5 minutes of Rolling Ball (sitting, secure) in the afternoon.
Result after 14 weeks: Robert has not relapsed during this period. The psychomotrician notes an improvement in tonic control of the hands and wrists, transferable to daily gestures (buttoning, opening jars). The reaction times measured on SCARLETT are stable, which in the context of Parkinson's is a positive result. Robert's wife reports that the daily exercises have become a couple's ritual, with a positive effect on both of their morale.
📊 Measured results: zero falls over 14 weeks (vs 2 in the previous 6 months), maintenance of reaction times (no degradation), bimanual coordination score (Rolling Ball) improved by 18%. Adherence was 92% — the highest in the active file of the psychomotrician.
"What I love about the Rolling Ball is that the child works their body without realizing it. They think they are playing a video game, while I see their wrists strengthening and their bimanual coordination improving. It's disguised psychomotor work as play."
8. Focus: The Rolling Ball, the ultimate psychomotor tool
Among all the digital tools available, The Rolling Ball occupies a unique place in psychomotricity. It is the only device that transforms the tablet into a true bodily tool, going beyond simple tactile interaction to engage the whole body in play.
The principle
The tablet is placed on a support that transforms it into a tilting platform. The user must tilt the tablet with both hands to roll a virtual ball through an obstacle course. The ball reacts to the slightest movements: too abrupt and it slips, too slow and it stops. The patient must find the right tonic dosage — a fundamental exercise in psychomotricity.
What The Rolling Ball works on
The list of functions engaged is remarkably long for a single exercise. Bimanual coordination is constantly involved: both hands must cooperate, with asymmetrical roles depending on the desired direction. Tonic control is at the center of the exercise: dosage of force, gradual relaxation, maintaining a stable position. Oculomotor coordination is constantly solicited: following the ball with the eyes while anticipating obstacles. Proprioception of the hands, wrists, and forearms provides the necessary information for motor adjustment. And motor planning comes into play on complex courses: anticipating the trajectory, predicting turns, adapting strategy.
Who is it relevant for?
The Rolling Ball is particularly indicated for children with TDC (preparation for graphomotricity by strengthening hand postural control), children with ADHD (exercise for tonic regulation and returning to calm), post-stroke patients (reintegrating the neglected upper limb by imposing bimanuality) and Parkinson's patients (maintaining dexterity and preventing rigidity). Its versatility makes it a rare cross-functional tool.
💡 Practical advice. During the session, vary the positions: standing (engagement of the trunk and balance), sitting at a table (focus on hands and wrists), sitting on the floor (engagement of the trunk and overall posture). Each position modifies the motor demands and enriches the psychomotor work. The same exercise, three positions, three different bodily experiences.
9. The tablet between the office, school, and home
Psychomotricity is not limited to the office. The psychomotrician also works in schools (as part of RASED or PPS), in CAMSP, in CMP, and prescribes exercises at home. The tablet facilitates this continuity between the child's living environments.
At school, the tablet can be used by the AESH as part of the adjustments provided in the PPS. Short exercises for oculomotor coordination (5 minutes) before a drawing session prepare the oculomotor system and improve the quality of the writing that follows. This is a concrete argument that the psychomotrician can present in ESS (Schooling Monitoring Team).
At home, parents become therapeutic intermediaries. The program is simple: 10 minutes of targeted exercises, with clear instructions and a tool that the child already knows since they use it in the session. The continuity of stimulation between sessions significantly accelerates motor acquisitions. Studies in motor learning show that distributed practice (short but daily) is much more effective than massed practice (long but spaced).
The monitoring platform unifies data from the three environments. Whether the child practices in the office, at school, or at home, the statistics converge in the same dashboard. The psychomotrician has a complete view of the child's actual practice, without relying on verbal reports from parents or the teacher.
🏠 Organize the continuity between office-school-home
- In session: 10-15 min of tablet integrated into the psychomotor pathway
- At school: 5 min before graphic work (via AESH, framed by the PPS)
- At home: 10 min per day, supervised by a trained parent
- Train the AESH and parents during a dedicated session
- Consult statistics weekly to adjust
- Present progress data in ESS to argue for adjustments
10. How to choose the right digital tool?
The needs of the psychomotor therapist are specific: the tool must engage the body, not just the mind. Here are the essential selection criteria.
| Criterion | Why it is essential in psychomotricity |
|---|---|
| Oculomotor coordination exercises | This is the flagship function of the tablet in psychomotricity — ensure that the exercises are numerous and scalable |
| Available balance device | The balance device transforms the tablet into a bodily tool: without it, you remain in pure tactile |
| Integrated sports breaks | Essential for children with ADHD: limits screen time and channels the need for movement |
| Professional tracking platform | Objective data on coordination and fine motor skills for your renewal assessments |
| Age-appropriate adaptation | The interface for a 5-year-old child is not suitable for a 75-year-old senior |
| Offline use | For sessions in school, in CAMSP, or homes without WiFi |
| GDPR compliance | Data from minor patients is particularly sensitive |
The differentiating criterion in psychomotricity is bodily engagement. A tool that only offers classic tactile exercises (touching, sliding) remains limited. The ideal is a tool that combines fine tactile exercises AND a balance device, allowing work on both digital fine motor skills and overall coordination of the upper limbs.
Always test the tool with your patients in real situations. A 6-year-old child with a developmental coordination disorder and a 14-year-old adolescent with ADHD do not react the same way. Observe motor engagement, motivation, and the relevance of the exercises for your specific therapeutic project.
🚀 Ready to test with your patients?
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