5 Activities Designed to Work with Children with ADHD

The Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is characterized by manifest symptoms of inattention and/or impulsivity-hyperactivity. It is estimated that in each classroom there is, on average, one child who suffers from it. In a previous blog post, we already discussed its symptoms, diagnosis and treatment and today, on the occasion of the International Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Day (ADHD) and with the aim of raising awareness about this disorder, we will propose five NeuronUP activities to work with children with ADHD.

Activities for children with ADHD

Below, we present five activities to work with children affected by ADHD.

1. Obstacle Gymkhana

First, we present Obstacle Gymkhana, the first of the activities to address ADHD.

What does it involve?

It is a worksheet that involves memorizing a series of obstacles and then plotting the requested route while avoiding them.

What does this activity train?

It primarily trains episodic memory and secondarily planning.

Play by levels

Additionally, like all NeuronUP worksheets, it has five different levels of difficulty that allow the professional to tailor the activity to each user’s abilities: basic, easy, medium, hard and advanced.

In the following video you can see how to work with it:

2. Space Conquest

What does it involve?

This space-themed children’s exercise consists of jumping between different moving planets until reaching the final destination.

What does this activity train?

This game trains spatial relationships, sustained attention, inhibition, planning and processing speed.

Play by levels

As in all NeuronUP games, the difficulty automatically increases or decreases according to the user’s correct responses or mistakes.

Activity customization

Additionally, in this type of activity you can create customized phases to adapt them to the specific needs of the child with ADHD.

Parameters

Thus we can define some parameters such as:

• Speed,
• the number of channels on the screen,
• the number of channels,
• the format,
• the distractors.

General aspects

You can also choose other general aspects such as:

• The number of exercises,
• the maximum time,
• whether you want a visible timer for the activity or not,
• whether to include an inactivity warning or not,
• modify the instructions.

3. Camouflaged Letters

What does it involve?

This attention worksheet is one of the ideal activities for working with children with ADHD. It consists of finding the words that contain the indicated letters.

What does this activity train?

This game trains selective attention.

Play by levels

This activity has five different levels of difficulty: basic, easy, medium, hard and advanced.

5. Search and You Will Find

Finally, one of the most fun activities to work with children with ADHD.

What does it involve?

In the game Search and you will find!, children have to search for a series of specific items among a set, as shown in the following image:

What does this activity train?

Likewise, this game trains selective attention.

Play by levels

The user moves up and down levels automatically, depending on their correct answers or mistakes.

Activity customization

Parameters

This allows us to set some parameters such as:

• Number of items,
• number of target stimuli to search for,
• maximum errors.

General aspects

Additionally, you can choose other general aspects such as:

• The number of exercises,
• the maximum time,
• whether you want a visible timer for the activity or not,
• whether to include an inactivity warning or not,
• modify the instructions for performing it.

The importance of these activities in the intervention of children with ADHD

These activities increase the motivation of children with ADHD, which has a decisive impact on the intervention, achieving greater symptom control and therefore better results in treatment.

Likewise, the possibility of carrying out cognitive stimulation therapy through different devices with playful activities is an incentive for children with ADHD. Symptoms such as inattention, hyperactivity or impulsivity take a back seat, allowing them to work for longer periods without signs of decreased attention or loss of interest in performing the exercises.

If you liked this post about activities for children with ADHD, you might be interested in these posts from NeuronUP:

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5 Actividades diseñadas para trabajar con niños con TDAH