It is a theory the University of Otago clinical psychologist hopes to test in parallel pilot studies involving preschoolers in Dunedin and New York.
Dr Healey and her research students plan to work with up to 15 children in Dunedin this year, while Prof Jeffrey Halperin, her postdoctoral research supervisor when she worked at Queens College, City University of New York, will do do the same.
Over at least five weekly sessions, the children will play games with the researchers which require them to do all the things children with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) or those showing signs of the disorder find difficult. Simon Says requires body control, playing with wooden blocks requires organisational and planning skills, egg-and-spoon races require mind-body co-ordination and My Grandmother Went to Market requires memory skills.
The children will be in groups of five, which will also test their sharing and social graces.
Parents will be asked to play the same games at home with their children for half an hour each day for up to three months, while the researchers monitor families regularly.
The aim was to see whether the children could learn to retrain their own brains and regulate their own behaviour, Dr Healey said.
"Will they be able to focus better? . . . Will they be able to control their emotions and learn to calm down before they start acting out?"
At present, most ADHD children were treated with medication and/or behaviour counselling. But Dr Healey said those treatments were administered by adults and she was keen to find a solution which enabled children to help themselves.
"We don't know if it is going to work. Nothing like this has been tried before, so it is a work in progress. There could be benefits, but will they be short term? It could be like going to a gym where the [health] benefits stop when you stop going."
If the study was successful, she hoped to do longer-term studies, and eventually produce a play therapy manual which could be used by parents, teachers and child psychologists.
Dr Healey has yet to find the children for her pilot study. She began approaching Dunedin preschools last week, but said it appeared teachers might be reluctant to approach parents whose children were showing ADHD tendencies.
She urged parents who wanted to be involved to contact her through the university.
"I have made it clear I am not in the business of diagnosing children with ADHD. I am just interested in children whose behaviour would indicate they might be at risk of being diagnosed with ADHD. They will be children with extreme ADHD tendencies . . . which are affecting their ability to function in family or social settings."
There was general acceptance that children showed definite ADHD tendencies by the time they were 4 or 5, but it was not safe to diagnose them with the disorder until they were about 7, she said.
