25 Board Games That Promote Executive Functioning Skills

One of the most common questions and resources we’re asked for at LSA surrounds ways to better connect classroom activities with real-world skills for our neurodivergent learners. Traditional teaching methods, while effective, can sometimes fail to fully engage students or provide the practical, hands-on experience they need to master executive functioning skills like planning, organization, and time management.

Surprisingly, board games have a rich body of research supporting how they can be an effective approach to enhancing EF skills in learners with ADHD and autism. Games offer a unique, interactive, and non-traditional learning experience that can boost skills and fun in the classroom.

In this post, we’ll delve into 25 board games specifically chosen for their potential to improve executive functioning skills.

Click here to jump to the TL;DR summary.

How do Board Games Promote Learning?

Before we roll into the game selections, let’s first start with the research.

Bayeck (2020) conducted a comprehensive review of board gameplay and learning, arguably one of the most extensive reviews available for educators and therapists. The robust findings from more than 40 studies on board games in education and learning indicate that board games:

• Reduce complex topics and skills into more manageable components
• Have the capacity to build a variety of skills (creative thinking, flexibility, team work, working memory),
• Motivate students who may otherwise struggle with traditional teaching methods,
• Can be used for a variety of learners and skill levels. Board games have been used extensively with neurodivergent learners with ADHD and ASD.

25 Board Games that Promote Executive Functioning Skills

Now that you have a sample of the support for using board games in the classroom, here’s a list of 25 games that practice various executive functioning skills.

If you’re new to EF skills, before diving into this list, we encourage you to review The Executive Functioning 101 Resource Hub. It’s our comprehensive resource with information about each of these EF skill areas and strategies you can use to evaluate EF skills your learner may be struggling with.

Planning

1. Chess: The timeless strategy game. Chess challenges players to think several moves ahead, develops the ability to plan and foresee the consequences of actions, and can offer endless skill development. We love chess for so many reasons, including that it’s an affordable leisure activity that can generate social opportunities for neurodivergent learners. Chess boards come in thousands of iterations; chances are you can find a board and pieces that match your preferred interests. There are free options online, digital apps and lots of teaching resources available as well. One of our favorite ways to teach the components of the game: No Stress Chess
2. Settlers of Catan: In this resource management game, players must strategize on building settlements and cities, requiring careful planning and foresight to manage resources effectively and outmaneuver opponents. There are lots of rules for Settlers, but many different iterations of gameplay. It does take some time to complete a game, so may not be the easiest option for classroom or therapy sessions.
3. Ticket to Ride: One of the most well-loved board games on the market right now, Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train adventure game where players collect and play matching train cards to claim railway routes. The game promotes strategic planning and critical thinking as players have limited time and resources to build railways. It’s easy to learn and enjoyable for a variety of skill levels.
4. Agricola: A 17th-century farm management game that pushes players to strategize on resource allocation, animal husbandry, and crop growth, demanding detailed planning to ensure the prosperity of their farmstead. The game consists of 14 rounds, so requires learners to carefully plan out and organize their strategy, flexibly adjusting along the way.
5. Pandemic: Unlike the other games on this list, Pandemic is a cooperative board game. Players work together to treat infections worldwide, gathering resources for cures, necessitating careful strategic planning and teamwork. It’s reminiscent of the COVID-era, but does encourage strategic thinking and cooperation.

Organization

1. Dominion: This deck-building card game encourages players to efficiently organize their decks to gain the most points, promoting organizational skills through strategic selection and use of cards. Tons of expansion packs and variations if your learners enjoy this game.
2. 7 Wonders: Perfect for history and architecture fans, players in this game guide one of the seven great cities of the Ancient World. Requires learners to leverage resource management and play cards in strategies ways, building organizational and flexible thinking skills as they aim to balance military, scientific, and cultural development goals.
3. Terraforming Mars: Set in the 2400s, players work to make Mars habitable, managing large project cards representing different aspects of building a new world. Organization and planning skills are key to efficiently managing resources and project timelines.
4. Carcassonne: A tile-placement game where players draw and place tiles to score points as they build a medieval city. Carcassonne is one of the most approachable strategy games on this list and a good place to start for learners who may need more support with planning and organization. There are modified rules available online to make the game more approachable to beginners.
5. Power Grid (The Card Game): In this economic strategy game, players bid for power plants and acquire resources to produce electricity. A straight-forward card game that can be completed in 30-45 minutes, this one mimics the older board game version (which takes significantly longer to play!), and requires careful organization and planning to efficiently accomplish the goals of the game.

Time Management

1. Race for the Galaxy: Players build galactic civilizations using game cards that represent worlds or technical and social developments, requiring quick decision-making and efficient time management to outpace opponents. This game also requires learners to anticipate the strategy of other players, increasing attentional and emotional control skills.
2. RoboRally: A fast-paced board game where players program robots with cards, predicting opponents’ moves and hazards on the board, requiring effective time management and strategic planning. There are more than 80 different setup options for the game, making it a long-lasting option for learners who easily get bored with one or two gameplay iterations.
3. Escape: A cooperative dice game where players roll dice and work together to collect the required gems to escape the temple. This game requires quick thinking and effective management of resources since it operates on a fixed number of rounds. Good for a quick activity at the end of a lesson or class period.
4. Perfect Timing: If your learner schedules not only with time management, but struggles with the basic skills of telling time and understanding time concepts, Perfect Timing offers a fun and simple way to practice time-related understanding. Learners play cards strategically to move the hands of a clock forward and backward to land on the target time.
5. Quicksand: A real-time cooperative challenge where players work together to deactivate the Quicksand, an ancient apparatus of gears and sand that sits on the table. It’s really a series of sand timers that all operate at once. Players take turns playing cards that strategically flip different timers over again to extend the game’s play. Requires quick decision-making, understanding and balancing different demands, and how to manage time with moving parts.

Working Memory

1. Magic: The Gathering: Fans of Magic will know this collectible card game challenges players in a variety of executive functioning skills. We especially like how it builds working memory as players must remember and utilize complex rules and interactions between cards, enhancing what learners already know to build more strategic play.
2. Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective: An interactive mystery game where players solve cases with clues from newspapers, maps, and the London directory, requiring significant memory recall to piece together evidence. There are several different versions of this game, some more appropriate for classroom settings than others. All require learners to practice working memory skills.
3. Hanabi: A cooperative card game where players work together to create the perfect fireworks show by placing cards on the table in the right order, challenging players to remember which cards they and their teammates have. This one is fun for a variety of skill levels, changes every time, and is perfect for classroom groups.
4. The Resistance: A social deduction game where players must remember past actions and statements to identify who among them are undercover spies, testing memory and deduction skills. This one requires a lot of gameplay skill, but is a fun option to challenge advanced learners in new ways.
5. Codenames: A social word game where players guess the names of agents from their spymasters’ clues, requiring concentration and the ability to recall previous clues and guesses. This one has been recognized as Game of the Year in multiple lists and has many different iterations now, but does require some general popular culture knowledge to play.

Emotional & Attentional Control

1. Space Escape: A team survival game where players practice communication, strategy and shared decision-making as they work as a team to collect the Mole Rats’ equipment, dodge the snakes and get to the escape pod!
2. Dixit: A storytelling card game that encourages players to use creativity and intuition to match stories with illustrated cards, requiring emotional insight and empathy to connect with others’ thoughts and ideas. It’s a more sophisticated version of Apples to Apples that can be played with a variety of learners.
3. Awkward Yeti Anxiety Attack: The Anxiety Attack game board is designed to look like a human brain, culminating in the dreaded Anxiety Spiral. Players take turn reviewing cringe-worthy scenarios and fun responses to stress.
4. The Mindfulness Game: Designed by teachers and therapists, this simple card game teaches Meditation, Breathing Techniques & Social/Coping Skills. Has some evidenced based support that game play can help with coping with stress and anxiety.
5. Bounce Battle: A stand-up and move-around game where players must bounce ping pong balls into a wooden structure in strategic patterns. Requires focused attention and persistence in an easy-to-use individual or group game format.

How to Maximize the Executive Functioning Benefits of Playing Board Games

While playing games with family and friends has clear social benefits, there are a few tips that can help maximize the executive functioning boost for your learners.

• Customize game selection for individual students. Choose games that align with your students’ or clients’ specific executive functioning needs. Consider the developmental appropriateness of a game, their interests, and the specific executive functioning skills they need to develop.
• Make it a regular activity. Executive functioning skills don’t develop overnight or happen without specific practice. Dedicate specific times each week for games.
• Challenge your learners. Gradually increase the complexity of the games you introduce to your learners play as their skills develop. Start with games they enjoy and find easy or relaxing. Then move to more challenging games. For games that have easy, moderate, and challenging rules, gradually increase the challenge for your learners as their skills progress.
• Encourage play with different groups. If we continue to play games with the same participants over time, it’s likely that your learners will become attuned to the strategies and ways of thinking for the specific group. This can be an advantage to building skills initially, but over time, playing with different peers can help your students encounter different strategies and flexible thinking.
• Facilitate discussion. After gameplay, lead a discussion on the experiences and lessons learned during the game. Ask questions that prompt reflection on decision-making processes (“What helped/didn’t help during the game?”), challenges faced (“What would you do differently next time?” “What was unexpected?”), and how emotions were managed (“How did you feel when ___ happened?”).
• Track progress over time. Like most of our recommended executive functioning interventions at LSA, we encourage you to track data on student progress. Keeping a log of games played, observable improvements in skills over time, and notes from the discussion can provide valuable feedback over time.

For tools to track student progress, download our FREE .pdf behavior log worksheet from The Real-Life Executive Functioning Workbook (coupon code LSA20 for 20% off). Simple tools to help you log student progress with EF skills.

By following these guidelines, you can maximize the benefits of using board games as a tool for developing executive functioning skills. Whether in a classroom, therapy setting or at home, these games offer an alternative and engaging way to enhance critical skills that are essential for success in various aspects of life.

TL;DR – (Too Long, Didn’t Read)

This post highlights how board games can be used as practical, engaging tools for enhancing executive functioning (EF) skills in neurodivergent learners.

Board games have been shown in research to simplify complex skills into manageable components, motivate diverse learners, and build skills like creative thinking and working memory.

The selection of 25 different games includes games that foster planning, organization, time management, working memory, and emotional & attentional control. Special emphasis is placed on customizing game choices to individual needs, making gaming a regular educational activity, challenging learners progressively, and encouraging play within diverse groups.

The post also suggests facilitating reflective discussions post-gameplay and tracking progress to maximize EF skill development, offering an innovative approach to connect classroom activities with real-world skills for neurodivergent learners.

Further Reading

• Bayeck (2020) – Examining Board Gameplay and Learning: A Multidisciplinary Review of Recent Research
• Life Skills Advocate – Executive Functioning 101 Resource Hub
• Life Skills Advocate – Free Executive Functioning Assessment