Play Therapy Games for Children with Developmental Delays

When I work on specific skills for students with developmental delays, I always incorporate play therapy. Whether we are working on fine motor, gross motor, or perceptual skills, I make sure that the activities are fun for the child.

Working as a pediatric occupational therapist is a fun and challenging experience. I see children with a variety of diagnoses and I incorporate play therapy into my treatment on a daily basis. Because children learn as they play I carefully assess their areas of challenge as they play and work on those skill areas during play activities. The skills that I address include fine motor, gross motor, social, cognitive, and sometimes speech and language skills (usually working closely with a speech pathologist).

It can be fun, yet challenging to come up with play activities to address each of the skill areas listed above. A child may not have weaknesses in every area, but I typically incorporate all areas into a play therapy session just for skill practice.

 Here are some suggestions of play activities to work on each skill area:

Fine Motor Skills:

-        Legos

-        Play Dough

-        Magnadoodle

-        Bead Stringing

-        Block Stacking

Gross Motor Skills

-        Hokey Pokey

-        Simon Says

-        Hop Scotch

-        Rover-Rover

-        Obstacle Courses

-        Jump Rope

Social Skills

-        Social Stories

-        Board Games

-        Bingo

-        Card Games

Cognitive Skills

-        Puzzles

-        Mazes

-        Hidden Pictures

-        Concept Games

-        Concentration Card Game

Speech/Language 

-        Which one Doesn’t Belong?

-        I Spy Game

-        What color is the…?

-        Matching Games

Dear Readers, If you have found my blog to be helpful, please "like" my Facebook page and follow my blog...I'm trying to get my book published and this would be a great help! Thanks :)