Musical Playground

at Casa Colina Hospital

The Huunat Interactive Musical Playground at Casa Colina Hospital and Centers for Rehabilitation

Access to the many therapeutic, developmental, and cognitive benefits of musical engagement has often been limited to those with extensive training and specialized instruments, or non-conforming interfaces; making them inaccessible to those with certain neurological, physical or other cognitive differences.

The Interactive Musical Playground at Casa Colina is the first of its kind to bring more universal access to the proven benefits of musical engagement, providing support and enhanced therapeutic platforms for clinicians and the children they treat.

This playground is the first of its kind to hold museum quality sculptures embedded with sensors, music and lighting interactions, designed to spark motivation and improve engagement time, social interactions and overall adherence for directed therapies for autism and other developmental differences.

  • All of the features of the Musical Playground have been conceived of and designed to integrate with one another, forming a network of sculptural therapy-driven interactions and game modes. This means that the children can play therapeutically-meaningful games that have them running from one feature to another, promoting essential physical activity and new social interactions, all while playing in a musical amusement park, designed especially for them.

Making musical experiences more universally accessible

"My client needs lots of strategies to help with regulation (both bodily and emotional). Prior to the musical playground, he would only attend to therapy for 30 minutes due to poor regulation. His parents and I have brainstorming a variety of strategies and sensory breaks and realized that music not only brought him joy but it also was a useful tool to help him regulate.

Ever since the musical playground has come around, he has appropriately requested breaks throughout the session to utilize the playground to help with body and emotional regulation. He loves listening to the music as he walks up the stairs and he demonstrates improved breathing patterns while watching the Musical Kalliroscope. He loves the musical playground and is now participating in the full hour of therapy!”

— Patricia Ling, OT.

  • Many of the products currently used in therapeutic applications are appropriated from other distinct use case scenarios for which the devices were originally developed, and often involve interfacing with non-conforming and unfamiliar devices in a clinical setting.

    These often require cumbersome setup time aren’t always particularly engaging, playful, or beautiful. The Musical Playground liberates these types of technology-driven therapeutic interventions from indoor, isolated spaces while requiring no setup time to use. The outdoors can be a more playful, pro-social, and ultimately more therapeutic environment.

    We ensure that each of these features will best serve precise clinical needs by employing a process of ongoing design iteration and careful customization in response to dynamic feedback from clinicians.

    The quality of design and execution of these features would be at home in the finest amusement parks and children’s museums anywhere in the world, but uniquely here, they are programmed and customized in close consultation with Casa Colina’s clinical team from project inception and into their use-cycle. Clinicians have access to a web-based application that allows them to control game modes and change sound libraries; and this means that they can make immediate adjustments to the way each feature is working to best serve the changing needs of each child, in each moment.

  • A variety of musical interactions and games provide new platforms for developing socialization and speech skills as well as furthering their physical and occupational therapies

  • This sensorized playground will also provide unique opportunities for customization, clinical research, and data collection.

  • There is no other playground that integrates these levels of customization and control, with meaningful and directed therapeutic interventions.

    Once the features are delivered and installed, clinicians begin to use them with their patients right away. They discover what aspects are best supporting and enhancing their work while making special requests for new features and new sound libraries that they believe will make the features even more valuable and effective to their work.

    New software and new sound libraries are added and updates are made to clinically-facing user interfaces.