“Timing is everything”
Timing can be defined as the ability to perform at the right moment to maximize effect. Good timing refers to an action taking place at a good time, with a positive effect. Bad timing refers to an act that took place at the wrong time and produced bad results. Good and bad timing can occur intentionally or randomly; it is not always a matter of choice.
An example of good timing is a baseball player swinging and hitting the ball at the right time to achieve a home run. Unintentionally good timing might be going to a computer shop to buy a specific laptop, and finding that only one is left, and it’s at a 50% discount.
An example of intentionally bad timing would be to deliberately miss the bus to school so you can have a day watching TV at home. Unintentionally bad timing might be a couple being in a hurry to get to a wedding, but all the traffic lights on their way are red, and they miss most of it.
Good timing is often the difference between success and failure. In sports, we observe the importance of timing in achieving the preferred result. For example, kicking a soccer ball at the right millisecond to land in the right place can result in a goal and victory. In another example, understanding the right time to fake a movement in basketball in order to trick the guard can result in the shot that will determine the championship.
Timing is not just “when to do” something but is also “when not to do” it. One of the processes occurring when looking for the right timing is the conscious inhibition of movement. This inhibition represents the decision to refrain from acting until a specific time in order to be more precise with the timing of the movement.
Timing as a skill
Timing can be perceived as a skill, since it can be improved over time, and therefore meets the definition of learning as a constant change in behavior. Training timing is an off-task type of practice, since it is a cross-sectional skill which applies to any motor learning procedure, regardless of the task. Timing can be learnt as task specific or as a general skill.
Training the timing skill involves:
• Anticipation practice – try to anticipate what will happen and when, so you can plan a response
• Repeating the same movement over and over again to create automaticity, which is correlated with good timing
• Using all sensory input with high consciousness – proprioceptive, visual and auditory input especially – in order to choose the right timing for the action.
Timing and speech treatment
• Applying manual techniques requires a high level of timing skill. The therapist needs to find the right timing to implement the support. Support delivered too early will probably interfere with the pronunciation attempt, while late support will miss the goal. Your hands should be close to the child’s mouth or supporting area in order to be able to respond in time. The best sign of when to intervene with manual support is the child’s inhalation just before speech.
• Order of the treatment structure – the timing of sections of the treatment within a lesson is a strategic professional decision which can influence the treatment results.
• Transitions between sections in treatment involve timing. The therapist should find the right time to change the sections according to the learning curve rule. Missing the right timing will result in non-optimal results in the good scenario, or poor compliance and no result in the bad scenario.
• Transitions between trials – the right moment to have a break from practice is all about timing. The therapist needs to find the right time, which is usually the end of a phase in the activity. These might be the end of a section in a song, of a scene in a video clip, of one’s turn in a video game, and so on. Stopping in the middle of something is unexpected and doesn’t synchronize with the flow, hence might cause frustration and reduce compliance.
• Managing motivation sources – in therapy we use various motivation sources in order to maintain motivation throughout the lesson. Deciding which motivation sources, in what order, and when to use each is defined as energy sources management. The temporal part of managing motivation sources involves timing of transition between sources and timing of sources (and also their order).
