Background: Due to brain damage impacting motor and cognitive areas, children with cerebral palsy frequently struggle with executive functioning. Impaired planning, organizing, problem-solving, and memory abilities limit their capacity to complete activities effectively. There is much evidence that supports the use of Play intervention to enhance Executive functions (EF). Therefore, a systemic review and evaluation of existing evidence is being done to explore and investigate the needs and limitations of Indian Occupational Therapy research.

Objectives: The purpose of this review is to analyze the effectiveness of play therapy in improving executive functions in children with Cerebral Palsy (CP).

Methods: A systematic review was conducted according to the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines. The search was done on the databases (PubMed, Scopus, Open Access, Web of Science, Research Gate & Google Scholar) to identify studies that include Randomized control trials (RCT), CP, EF in children, executive dysfunctions in CP, and how play therapy has an important role in improving EF. Studies with no access to full text, a language other than the English language, and studies with no such proper explanation were excluded using a combination of keywords of CP, EF, and Play therapy. The search was restricted to published studies that are relevant to the systemic review and was published between the year 2008 - 2022. The search keyword string was – “Cerebral Palsy and Executive functions” OR “Cerebral Palsy and Play therapy” OR “Play therapy and Executive functions”. We independently finished the screening, and read each screened study's entire text.

Results: The initial search yielded 300 potentially relevant articles from databases and other additional sources out of which 133 studies were excluded as duplicates, 92 studies were excluded as they didn’t meet inclusion and exclusion criteria, 65 were excluded as they didn’t mention intervention protocol and 10 studies were included for review. All the review articles were identified as (RCT) with total participants of 558 in total.