More than child’s play: the potential benefits of play-based interventions for young children with ADHD

Direct play has the potential to help children with ADHD. To be more specific, it can help with many of the difficulties characteristic of children with ADHD and to improve long-term trajectories. An important component of treatment  should be to facilitate neural and social development through playing with parents, siblings, and peers. Another way to help kids with ADHD are through games , specifically designed to target skills such as inhibitory control, working memory and motor coordination. Two games that also help are pretty common to many, hopscotch and "Simon says." Playing games in the real world with peers, siblings, or parents aid children's cognitive development and benefit their social skills. Play-based interventions, include direct pla with a parent that not only helps child but it also benefits the parent-child relationship. Play therapy was shown to be more successful when parents were involved in the intervention. These interventions have to be fun or engaging for the child or their will be no true impact. Play-based interventions have long lasting effects, such as improving preschooler's neuropsychological functioning and reducing the severity of preschoolers' inattention and hyperactive/impulsive behaviors.  By enhancing the neurocognitive development and improving parent-child relationships through the use of directed play, the need for palatable interventions that make an enduring change for children with ADHD may be fulfilled.

O'Neill, S., Rajendran, K., & Halperin, J. (2012). More than child's play: The potential benefits of play-based interventions for young children with ADHD. Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics, 12(10), 1165-1167.