A viscoelastic numerical scheme based on smoothed particle dynamics is presented. The concept goes a step beyond smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) which is a grid-free Lagrangian method describing the flow by fluid-pseudo-particles. The relevant properties are interpolated directly on the resulting movable grid. In this work, the effect of viscoelasticity is incorporated into the ordinary conservation laws by a differential constitutive equation supplied for the stress tensor. In order to give confidence in the methodology we explicitly consider the non-stationary simple corotational Maxwell model in a channel geometry. Without further developments the scheme is applicable to 'realistic' models relevant for three-dimensional (3D) viscoelastic flows in complex geometries.