Ice Cream Playdough for Feeding Therapy
by Taryn Alper, MA, CCC-SLP/TSSLD
It doesn’t have to be summer to make ice cream playdough, but making it during the hot months can help ease a child into the sensory experience of the season: dripping ice cream from a cone or a cup.
For my feeding therapy edible ice cream playdough, I use Team Cartwright’s recipe for the minimal ingredients: frosting, flour, and food coloring.
During a recent feeding therapy session, I had a toddler and his mother follow the directions to make the playdough. The child was able to help pour ingredients, stir, and knead the playdough. I suggested “strawberry” playdough since we were also offering strawberries, so we put in red drops.
Next, we sat at the table to make our ice cream cones on white paper plates. We used these ice cream cups (Amazon affiliate link) because they’re a good size for kids to hold, fun to eat because of how they’re easily dissolvable in the mouth, and when broken into pieces you can see its different parts. Further down I’ll talk about how breaking the cone can be a lesson in flexibility.
We used an ice cream scoop like this one (Amazon affiliate link) for our cone. I recommend at least two scoops because it allows an opportunity for one scoop to fall off and for the child to use their hands to put it back on.
For toppings, your options are endless. For our first time making it, we used mini-M&Ms, rainbow sprinkles, strawberries, and chocolate syrup. I recommend a sauce and another wet ingredient to build texture tolerance. The child was phasing into eating strawberries again after refusing them, so this activity offered a new way to serve them. He was hesitant to dip the strawberries into the chocolate syrup after we put the syrup on the plate, but the important thing was that it was there for him as an option.
For the next session, I recommended that we add more wet fruits such as pineapple, kiwi, peaches, pears, blueberries, or raspberries. Using drained, canned fruit is a great option. For wet toppings, whipped cream and other flavored syrups such as butterscotch or caramel would add variety. Dry toppings such as crushed graham crackers or another available cookie, shredded coconut, or cereal like Rainbow Krispies would also be fun like in a real ice cream shop.
So how did the child do? He loved building his ice cream cone. It helps that these cones can stand up on their own. He either used a spoon or his fingers to put on toppings. I introduced breaking the ice cream cone because of the child’s history of panicking if his favorite breakfast cookie or cracker broke and always begging for a new one. I broke my ice cream cone first and calmly told the child that sometimes, your cone breaks. The parent was floored to see the child follow my lead by not only biting into the cone, but trying to break it off with his fingers as well. I encouraged the parent to take a video as he was doing it to capture the beautiful memory and to also have it to show him in the future. What a win and a way to build trust!
How will you make your edible ice cream playdough?