Tap-Tap Opposites

A table-top copycat game turned upside down: when you tap once, the child taps twice — and when you tap twice, the child taps once.

  1. Sit facing each other with a wooden spoon or unsharpened pencil each.
  2. First play plain copycat: you tap once, they tap once; you tap twice, they tap twice.
  3. Introduce the opposite rule: “When I tap one time, you tap two times. When I tap two times, you tap one time.”
  4. Check the rule with two practice turns, then play 10–12 turns in a mixed-up order.
  5. Keep a steady, unhurried pace and wait for the child’s taps before your next turn.
  6. Swap roles so the child sets the taps and you answer.

Variation: use claps or knocks on the table instead of taps, or change the pair to loud/soft — “when I tap loudly, you tap softly.”

Requirements

  • Space: A table or a patch of floor to sit at
  • Surface: Table top, tray, or a hardback book on the lap
  • Materials: Two wooden spoons, chopsticks, or unsharpened pencils
  • Participants: 1 adult + 1 child
  • Supervision: Full — played together, face to face

Rationale & Objective

The tapping task comes from Luria’s classic work and was adapted for young children by Diamond & Taylor (1996), who found steady improvement between ages 3½ and 7 — a 5-year-old is right in the middle of that growth. It is hard because the natural urge is to copy what you just saw and heard; the child must hold two rules in mind and suppress imitation every single turn. It is widely used as a measure of inhibitory control in preschoolers (Carlson, 2005; Smith-Donald et al., 2007). Unlike the big-movement games, this one practises inhibition while sitting still at a table, which is closer to what school will ask for.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: copies your taps most of the time; can say the rule but cannot follow it; loses track after 3–4 turns
  • Developing: correct on roughly half the turns; pauses visibly to think; often catches their own mistake straight afterwards
  • Proficient: correct on 10 or more of 12 turns at a steady pace without long pauses
  • Advanced: stays accurate at a faster pace and with a new pair (loud/soft, clap/knock); can lead the game and notice when you answer wrongly

Safety Notes

  • Use blunt tappers (spoons, unsharpened pencils) and keep them on the table, away from faces
  • This is a concentrated task — 2–3 minutes is plenty; stop before the child tires and accuracy falls apart
  • Do not treat it as a test or compare siblings’ scores; the published task is an assessment, but at home it is only a game
  • If a child still cannot follow any opposite rule by around age 6 and also struggles to stop, wait, and follow rules in daily life, mention it to the pediatrician or teacher

Hints

  • Playfulness: pretend you are woodpeckers sending secret messages, or that the spoons are “contrary drumsticks” that never do what they are told
  • Sustain interest: keep a best-streak record (“7 in a row!”) and try to beat it together another day; change the instrument — pan lids, cardboard box, knees
  • Common mistake: alternating one-two-one-two, which lets the child fall into a rhythm instead of thinking. Mix the order, including the same number twice or three times in a row
  • No equipment: clap instead of tapping — it works in a queue, a waiting room, or the car
  • Cross-domain: counting taps links to one-to-one counting (numeracy); the steady beat and loud/soft contrast build early music skills
  • Progression: plain copycat → one/two opposite, slow → faster pace → loud/soft opposite → combine (one loud tap means two soft taps) → child leads

Sources

  • Diamond & Taylor (1996). Development of an aspect of executive control — development of the abilities to remember what I said and to “Do as I say, not as I do”. Developmental Psychobiology, 29(4)
  • Luria, A.R. (1966). Higher Cortical Functions in Man
  • Carlson, S.M. (2005). Developmentally sensitive measures of executive function in preschool children. Developmental Neuropsychology, 28(2)
  • Smith-Donald, Raver, Hayes & Richardson (2007). Preliminary construct and concurrent validity of the Preschool Self-regulation Assessment (PSRA). Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 22(2)
  • Diamond, A. (2013). Executive Functions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 135–168