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Tick Task™ allows your child to easily transition between activities independently and on time according to individual and family schedules.
Tick Task™ is an innovative therapeutic tool meant to let your child to focus on task performance, completion, and transitioning between activities during the entire day:
• In the morning – Before going to kindergarten or school
• In the afternoon – After coming back from kindergarten or school, and for doing homework, and for activities with family or friends
• In the evening – Getting ready for bedtime
Tick Task – How it works
Visual and audio feedback
Using Tick Task Successfully
The Learning Phase
Reinforcements
Audio Reminder
Q&A
Tick Task – How it works
Tick Task works on an hourly timeframe. The analog clock has a minute hand and an hour hand. The hour hand is for orientation, whereas the red minute hand stands out and points to the activities arranged around the circle.
Tick Task includes four activity panels for morning, afternoon, and evening tasks.
Activities and everyday actions from the child's daily life are drawn on circular magnets: preparing homework, watching TV, tidying up after playtime, arranging a backpack etc.
Morning and evening tasks are especially detailed, being critical times for effective time management.
After the estimation phase, magnets are arranged on the circles on the activity panels, by chronological order and duration. Five minutes separate each consecutive pair of circles, and the distance between activities indicates the performance duration. For example, morning activity arrangement looks like:
Tick Task activity panels are stored on top of each other with the magnets on. This way you can swap them and place the relevant panel in front, without having to rearrange the magnets each time.
In addition to the illustrated magnets, Tick Task includes 8 circles in two sizes and 2 colors, which are meant for the times when flexibility is needed.
For example, they could represent turns in a game (blue circle = one child's turn; red circle = the other child's turn), or doing homework with breaks (big circle = homework time, small circle = break time, etc.)
Tick Task also includes 5 blank magnets, meant for drawing on them with magic markers or adding extra illustrations which don't appear on the magnets. For example, they could represent after-school classes or a visit from family or friends.
Unused magnets are conveniently stored within Tick Task™, underneath the activity panels.
One activity board includes numbers, meant for children old enough to tell time and read meaningful numbers. Along with this, there's no need to understand numbers to operate Tick Task™, and of course, it's suitable for even younger children without time reading skills.
Visual and audio feedback
Tick Task gives you and your child immediate visual and audio feedback.
Visual feedback is given by the red hand, pointing at the current activity.
Audio feedback is provided by rings which can be programmed into the system to suit the needs of your child and family.
These reminder rings encourage children with attention-deficit disorders to look at Tick Task and understand that it's time to do a certain task, or finish one and start the next.
The reminder system is flexible enough to accommodate your child's needs. Now, you can simply and easily:
• Preset rings at regular times of every day
• Browse through preset rings
• Change schedules
• Reset all rings and reprogram them
• Mute during ringing
• Temporarily turn off rings (for example on the Sabbath)
• Choose between a ring and a melody
Tick Task comes with a handle for easy carrying throughout the house – to the kitchen, bathroom etc.
To download a detailed user's manual,  TickTask User Menual.
Using Tick Task Successfully
Tick Task can be used easily and independently at home. Of course, one can use the services of a psychologist, a therapist or a coach for implementing the first phases.
The Estimation Phase
Before using Tick Task, you should evaluate your child's and family's needs and abilities.
You can use a table like this or any similar table:
| Activity / Task |
Time needed to complete without supervision |
Time needed to complete with supervision |
Comments |
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Activity / Task Time needed to complete without supervision Time needed to complete with supervision Comments
At this point you should take note of the following:
• What kind of reminder does your child need (verbal, physical or other) and how frequently?
• Does your child need reinforcement of any kindin order to complete tasks ? If so, how frequently?
• What is the appropriate line-up of activities for your child and family? Determine this based on your home's layout, your child's preferences, etc.
• Does your child get "stuck" doing certain tasks or during certain transitions between tasks more than others?
At this phase, you can include your child in the decision making. Together, you should determine the order of tasks, their respective durations and so on. Building a daily routine with your child will make him or her feel in control, more motivated and less resistant to change.
This will also help raise the awareness of the child's actions throughout the day, their difficult points and strengths. This awareness will prove to be an important foundation for any time management and organizational improvement.
The Learning Phase
You should start using Tick Task™ according to the age of the child and his ability to concentrate and learn.
• Choose a daily time which is not stressful or has a minimum amount of tasks to perform.
• Start with two activities and gradually add more tasks, so as not to cause over-stimulation.
• If the hour handof the clock interferes with concentration, it's possible to remove it and use the red minute hand only. In order to remove the hand:
1. Turn the transparent cover a bit and then pull it
2. Pull the two hands and remove them
3. Return the minute hand and the transparent cover to their proper place
Reinforcements
For some of the kids, the use of Tick Task™ by itself and completion of the activities on time will give them an instant and significant reinforcement.
Tick Task usually sparks inner motivation "to surpass" it, and no further reinforcements are needed.
In other cases or in different phases of use, it's possible that external reinforcements will be needed to keep motivation high.
It's easy to integrate Tick Task™ with different behavior modification methods. For example, the child will receive a "good point" (sticker) each time he "surpasses" the Tick Task™. This means finishing an activity on time or a series of activities.
It's also possible to give "good points" for activities which testify to correct time management of a series of previous activities, including: leaving the house on time in the morning, finishing homework or going to bed in the evening on time.
Based on your decision, the child can win a reward after collecting a certain number of stickers.
Audio Reminder
It's recommended to customize the audio reminders to the needs of the child.
Certain children need audio reminders for each new activity. Without the audio reminders they won't look at the Tick Task™ to check where they are on the activity continuum and what they need to do next.
Other children may need reminders only when a major transition is called for, including when a change of rooms is needed – getting out of the bathtub or brushing teeth for example, or completing an activity that is hard for them to disengage from, like watching television.
On Weekends and holidays it's possible to turn off the reminder rings by switching the button on the bottom of Tick Task ™ to the OFF position.
If you would like to share some tips with us after using Tick Task™, please click here.
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