Symbolic play in autism: a review.
Prompt first—many autistic kids can pretend when you show them how.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The authors read every paper they could find on pretend play in autistic kids. They looked at studies from the 1970s to the early 1990s. They wanted to know if these children could pretend at all, or if the skill was missing.
What they found
Autistic children rarely start pretend games on their own. Yet when an adult shows, asks, or models the game, many can join in. The ability is there; it just needs a cue.
How this fits with other research
Grace (1995) took the cue idea and ran PRT lessons. Seven preschoolers learned rich, novel pretend scenes that lasted three months.
Rutherford et al. (2007) seem to disagree. They tracked preschoolers for two years and saw "profound delays" in pretend play. The gap comes from sample choice: the review mixed ages and IQs, while D et al. studied only very young, language-delayed children.
Lancioni et al. (2000) echo the review: without a verbal description step, video modeling failed; once kids described the scene first, cooperative play bloomed. Words act as the adult cue.
Why it matters
Before you write "no pretend play" in a report, try one prompt. Hand the child a block, say "This is my phone, hello!" and wait. If play appears, the skill is teachable, not missing. Use PRT or video plus verbal prep and watch the scene grow.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Experimental research into the symbolic play of autistic children is reviewed in an attempt to outline the nature of their deficit in this area. While many studies can be criticized on methodological grounds, there is good evidence for an impairment in the spontaneous symbolic play of autistic children, an impairment that appears to extend to cover spontaneous functional play also. However studies that have investigated elicited and instructed play have indicated that autistic children may have a capacity for symbolic play that they do not spontaneously exhibit. The implications of these findings for various hypotheses concerning a symbolic play deficit in autism are considered and directions for future research are outlined.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 1993 · doi:10.1007/BF01046221