Each person has varying abilities to perform tasks requiring timing, planning and sequencing. Research has shown that those abilities form the foundation of many other human abilities such as: motor planning and performance; concentration and focus; control of aggression and hyperactivity, and cognitive planning and processing. Therefore, they also have a significant impact on academic achievement in speech, language, reading and mathematics. Further research and experience have shown that these fundamental capacities can be trained and improved upon, which in turn, may improve higher functional capacities. The goal of Interactive Metronome (IM) treatment is to bring about lasting improvements in an individual’s fundamental informational processing, planning and sequencing, and attention capacities. Individual goals of IM treatment will vary from person to person based upon individual needs and functional goals.

What Is Interactive Metronome (IM)?

It is a patented, computer based training program shown to improve attention, coordination and timing. It provides a non-invasive way to stimulate learning and development and backed by nearly a decade of clinical research and development.

How Does Interactive Metronome Work?

There is a growing understanding that neurological and motor planning and sequencing are among the most significant processing capacities in humans. These capacities have been shown to underlie a broad spectrum of mental and physical impairments and endowments. Thus, “natural timing” is an important foundation of our ability to attend, learn, process information, and physically execute actions.

The IM system, which is the result of years of rehabilitation technology research and development, is the only modality to systematically use guidance sounds and repetitive physical motion exercises to help individuals improve their underlying motor planning and sequencing ability.

IM patients develop the ability to maintain precise timing and focus over and over for longer and longer periods of time. As a patient repeats the interactive mental/physical control tasks during the treatment, the ability to maintain timing and focus without conscious effort becomes ingrained. Also, like balance learned through repetitive experiences on a bicycle, mental control skills learned through repetitive, successful planning and sequencing experiences appear to be long-lasting. As a result, upon completion of IM treatment, most patients find it significantly easier to learn new complex cognitive and physical tasks in all aspects of life.

Benefits of Interactive Metronome

IM treatment substantially affects several structures of the human brain recognized as being central to effective and efficient information processing.

IM treatment also appears to improve the efficiency of the synapses in transmitting information. The overall effect of IM treatment is to improve the performance of the human neural network, which is fundamental for all basic and high-level functional performance.

Treatment using IM may have the following affects:

• Improvement of timing and rhythmic accuracy
• Improvement of sensory processing and subsequent improvements in motor planning, sequencing, coordination, control, and balance
• Increased capacity for attention, concentration, and focus
• Improvement of cognitive capacities involving language processing and decision speed
• Reduced impulsivity and aggression
• Impacting on other behaviors

Who Can Benefit From IM?

The Interactive Metronome has broad-spectrum capabilities. The program can benefit children and adults with a wide range of physical and cognitive difficulties. Populations who may exhibit these challenges include individuals with:

• Mild and moderate learning disabilities
• ADHD
• Traumatic Brain Injury
• Cerebral Vascular Accident (CVA/Stroke)
• Parkinson’s Disease
• Pervasive Developmental Disorder

General Criteria

To perform IM activities in a way that is most likely to bring about the desired outcome, regardless of diagnosis the candidate should meet the following:

• Tolerance for wearing headphones
• Sufficiently acute binaural hearing
• Ability to understand and sustain repetitive movements
• Ability to perform the IM exercises or reasonably modified version of them
• Desire, or at least willingness, to participate in IM treatment
• Imitate simple gross motor patterns
• Ability to attend to a single task for at least 5 minutes