As a homeschooling mom of three little ones, play dough is a staple in our household.
What's not to love? It's fun, quiet, colorful, the kids will all play with it for hours.
For a child with Executive Function Difficulties and Dysgraphia, it goes beyond being just a toy - it serves as a powerful tool.
My son struggles with dysgraphia and executive function challenges. While completing work, it can be a struggle getting him to complete handwritten assignments, ELA work, or even math at times.
A tool I use to work through this struggle, is to play with play dough before trying to work on any challenging tasks.
I keep a morning basket ready for him, which includes play dough, a laminated sheet of warm up exercises, and rotating play dough mats that make things fun.
For a link to the warmup exercises we use, a play dough recipe, or play dough mats, click here.
Do your kiddos struggle with the same challenges?
Many kids with ADHD and ASD find it difficult to organize, prioritize, retain information, and maintain self-control, which are known as Executive Function Skills.
Speaking from experience, as a mom of two kiddos that struggle with these, this means that their bedrooms and homeschool areas are messy most of the time. It also means that controlling our emotions takes practice.
Not only do my kiddos with ADHD make messes, but they also walk away from them. For example, forgetting to flush the toilet even though they have been reminded many times.
They tend to misplace work or toys frequently and have difficulty staying on task. According to understood.org, these are all part of Working Memory.
It DOES NOT mean that they are lazy.
It DOES mean that they have a challenging time starting and finishing tasks, cleaning messes, and containing emotions.
Does your family struggle with avoiding writing tasks or have a diagnosis of dysgraphia?
Dysgraphia is a neurological condition that affects approximately 20% of people (Cleveland Clinic, 2022). It’s fairly common but may not be readily identified.
This can look like poor handwriting, grammatical errors, punctuation mistakes, spatial perception issues, disorganization, problems with processing language, and difficulty forming and recalling letters or numbers.
For two years I battled with the public school system, to investigate the “task avoidance behaviors” that they were so quick to label as disobedience. My son was able to verbalize answers, but struggled with handwriting, buttoning pants, and opening bottles. The knowledge was there but getting it out was hard for him.
Finally, we completed a private evaluation and confirmed dysgraphia was causing his struggles.
So how can Play dough help?
The good news for our family was that play dough and occupational therapy were the answers.
Kids who struggle with dysgraphia and executive function skills benefit from motor exercises. Playing with play dough = secretion of nerve growth factors, which can improve cognitive and executive functions through play (Ghafori, Heirani, & Aghadsi, 2018).
Playing with playdough also gives the opportunity to practice fine motor skills, recalling information, following directions, collaborating with a peer, planning, organizing, and time management.
Benefits of play dough
1. Develops Fine Motor Skills
As you may already know, rolling, pinching, kneading, cutting and molding play dough shapes are just a few ways kids play with play dough.
One of the main benefits of play dough is that this type of play specifically develops pincer grasp, hand-eye coordination, wrist extension, tripod grasp, and intrinsic muscle strengthening. These all support cutting with scissors, buttoning pants, and opening bottles, and with writing.
If you would like some ideas on fun fine motor play dough activities, please refer here. I encourage you to add fun play dough game boards, activities, and shape boards to rotate and keep kids engaged while building their skills.
2. Sensory Exploration & Development
Play dough can also be a fun way to learn how to integrate and respond to multiple sensory inputs. Whether a child has sensory processing challenges or not, the varied textures and bright colors stimulate their tactile and visual senses. It is possible to engage their olfactory senses by adding essential oils to the play dough as well.
3. Emotional Regulation & Stress- Relief
Squishing, Squeezing, and manipulating play dough reduces stress and releases tension. This calming and therapeutic play is an excellent mindfulness strategy to manage stress and anxiety.
We find it is useful for proprioceptive input for regaining focus, and as a great fidget tool during school tasks.
4. Lengthens Attention Span
Playing and molding play dough requires kids to concentrate for a period of time. For us, it started as a few minutes, and turned into hours. Count these steps as a success. Once interested in what they’re creating, they will be more focused and less distracted. This improves their attention span.
5. Fosters Creativity and problem-solving skills through imaginative play
Playing with play dough encourages kids to use their imagination, explore, promotes independence and self-esteem. The freedom to create anything promotes the development of problem-solving skills, risk taking, experimenting, and self-expression.
6. Improves communication
Play dough provides the canvas for creative play and helps them bring to life images or words that they are wanting to convey. Play dough can be used to shape into letters and numbers, make pictures or words, and recognize letters and numbers.
I was amazed at the inspiration my son found, while playing with play dough. I was able to explore his worries and model social skills, by playing play dough with him.
We ask questions about their playdough activities like, “What happens when we…?” This helps to enhance language and executive function skills.
Using play dough in groups fosters collaboration, sharing, and negotiating roles. This collaborative play nurtures communication skills, turn-taking, cooperation, and social bonds.
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References
Belsky, G. ADHD and messiness. (n.d.). https://www.understood.org/en/articles/adhd-and-messiness-what-you-need-to-know
Cleveland Clinic. Dysgraphia. (2022). https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/23294-dysgraphia
Ghafori, R., Heirani, A., & Aghadsi, M. T. (2018). Effect of Motor Exercises on Serum Level of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor and Executive Function in Children with Dysgraphia. J Kermanshah University of Medical Science. 22(2):e79187. doi: 10.5812/jkums.79187
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