{"id":6662994,"date":"2025-08-10T07:59:54","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T12:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/?p=6662994"},"modified":"2025-07-27T08:01:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T13:01:05","slug":"do-fidget-spinners-help-children-with-adhd-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/do-fidget-spinners-help-children-with-adhd-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Fidget Spinners Help Children with ADHD? [Reposted]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We’ve been hearing A LOT about fidget spinners and squishy toys lately. Our blogger has been on this story for months…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Good news: cognitive science research can be SPECTACULARLY useful in guiding and informing teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Less good news: that guidance isn’t always clear or prompt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research findings often contradict one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They can also contradict our deeply-held beliefs, and\/or our school’s policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not everyone who quotes research actually understands<\/em> research, or quotes it accurately<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so forth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another problem with research gets less focus: it takes so much time<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this case: fidget spinners were a thing back in 2017!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps you — like me — frequently heard the idea that “we can give fidget spinners to students to help them get the wiggles out!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More specifically: “fidget spinners will help those students diagnosed with ADHD let off jittery steam without wandering around or distracting others.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that time, those claims sounded plausible or implausible — depending on your perspective and experience. But we didn’t have any research to support or contradict them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As one group of pediatricians<\/a> wrote in 2017:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Fidget spinners and other self-regulatory occupational therapy toys have yet to be subjected to rigorous scientific research. Thus, their alleged benefits remain scientifically unfounded. Paediatricians should […] inform parents that peer-reviewed studies do not support the beneficial claims.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Well: SEVEN years later, now we do have research!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worth the Wait<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Researchers in Florida<\/a> worked with a group of 60 children enrolled in a summer program for young children diagnosed with ADHD.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This program offered both academic and behavioral training over eight weeks, to better prepare these children for the upcoming school year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both in the first two weeks and the final two weeks, the research team gave several children fidget spinners during the 30-minute ELA class. They looked for data on these questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did the fidget spinners change the amount of wandering around?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did they change the students’ attention to the class work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, did they affect the other children who did not get fidget spinners?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure enough, the data they gleaned provide helpful classroom guidance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good News, Bad News<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you’re in the pro-fidget spinner camp, you’ll be glad to know that the fidget spinners did NOT lead to an increase it problems among the other students who didn’t get one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They didn’t wander any more than usual; they didn’t pay less attention than usual. (“Area violations” and “attention violations” were the two categories tracked by researchers.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s the good news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’re pro-fidget spinner, the rest of the news won’t encourage you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First: the spinners reduced wandering a bit at the beginning of the program.<\/em> But they did NOT reduce wandering at the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second: the spinners raised inattention levels both at the beginning and at the end of the program. And the increases<\/i> in inattention were greater than the decreases<\/em> in wandering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In brief, fidget-spinner champions will not find much support here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questions and Caveats<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

No one study can answer all questions, so we should keep its limitations in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about older students<\/em>? This research doesn’t explore that question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Won’t students get better at using fidget spinners AND paying attention over time?<\/em> We don’t know. (But: eight weeks is an unusually long research study.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don’t they benefits SOME students<\/em>? Maybe. A 60-person study doesn’t really allow us to look for granular sub-populations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A later study should show the opposite results!<\/em> It certainly could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, passionate fidget-spinner advocates can ask worthwhile questions. And, we shouldn’t be too emphatic based on one study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we can say this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to this one research study, fidget spinners did not help young students diagnosed with ADHD pay attention; they did more harm than good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Graziano, P. A., Garcia, A. M., & Landis, T. D. (2020). To fidget or not to fidget, that is the question: A systematic classroom evaluation of fidget spinners among young children with ADHD. Journal of attention disorders<\/i>, 24<\/i>(1), 163-171.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

How does this logic apply to “squishy toys”? We’re glad you asked<\/a>…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve been hearing A LOT about fidget spinners and squishy toys lately. Our blogger has been on this story for months… Good news: cognitive science research can be SPECTACULARLY useful in guiding and informing teachers. Less good news: that guidance isn’t always clear or prompt. After all: Research findings often contradict one another. They can also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":7800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-6662994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-adhd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6662994"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6662996,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662994\/revisions\/6662996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6662994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6662994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6662994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}