Teaching Toy Play Skills to Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Scoping Review of the Literature
Teach play where kids already play, with friends and favorite toys, not at a table.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Pane et al. (2025) read every paper they could find on teaching toy play to children with autism. They did not run new kids; they mapped what others already tried. Their chart shows which studies used real rooms, peers, or favorite toys.
What they found
The map shows most winning programs share three things. They happen on the playroom floor, not at a table. They use peers or siblings as helpers. They let the child pick the toy first.
How this fits with other research
Bernard-Opitz et al. (2004) once found strict ABA drills beat free play for listening and sitting. Pane’s map still lists that study, but shows later work leans toward natural set-ups. The gap is about goals: drills teach compliance, natural set-ups teach flexible play.
Harrop et al. (2017) showed girls pick dolls and boys pick cars, even with autism. Pane keeps that choice point in the map. The review says start with the child’s pick, not the lesson plan.
Yuill et al. (2007) built a whole playground to spark peer play. Pane counts the study as proof that room design matters too.
Why it matters
You can stop hauling kids to the therapy table for every play goal. Bring the teaching to the block corner, add a peer, and let the child keep the pink doll or the red car. Open your data sheet, model a new step every two minutes, and praise the moment it happens.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
ABSTRACTChildren with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often present with substantial delays in the development of play skills, requiring intensive intervention. Several literature reviews have explored various strategies to teach play skills. They recommend teaching play in a variety of contexts to include natural settings and peer interactions to enhance generalization. Naturalistic components of play instruction may include natural settings (e.g., home, school play area), natural change agents (e.g., peers, parents), and salient environmental stimuli (e.g., common toys, siblings, peers). Given the complexity of these variables and their impact on the acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of play skills, a scoping review can help organize the literature for clinicians and researchers. Therefore, the purpose of this scoping review was to investigate interventions aimed at teaching toy play to children with ASD and to examine the naturalistic components included in these interventions. We aimed to (a) provide an overview of the current literature on teaching toy play to children with ASD, (b) summarize the naturalistic components of the interventions reviewed, (c) offer suggestions to guide clinicians in teaching toy play skills, and (d) present considerations for future research directions in this area.
Behavioral Interventions, 2025 · doi:10.1002/bin.70016