Beyond echoplaylia: promoting language in children with autism.
One recess of adult-led pretend play pushed an echolalic eight-year-old into new, self-directed sentences.
01Research in Context
What this study did
One eight-year-old boy with autism echoed almost everything he heard.
The team ran adult-led pretend games with two peers at recess for six weeks.
They filmed sessions and counted new, non-echoed words and play acts.
What they found
By week three the boy used new words to ask for roles like "pirate captain.
He stopped echoing and started directing peers with short, new sentences.
Symbolic play rose from zero to five different themes per session.
How this fits with other research
Davison et al. (1995) tried a similar idea with younger kids and got the same language jump.
Chezan et al. (2024) used mand training, not play, and still saw new words.
Honey et al. (2007) showed play and language delays cluster in autism, so fixing play may unlock words.
Why it matters
If you run recess groups, add a quick pretend theme and rotate roles.
One child moved from echoing to bossing peers in two weeks.
Try it for kids who echo but rarely speak on their own.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The article was written to support the use of play as a medium to extend and enrich the communicative exchanges and, more specifically, the symbolic language of children on the autistic spectrum. The first argument in support of such use of play lies within the features of autistic communication, and particularly the extreme challenges encountered in imaginative play and narrative thought. The second argument on behalf of play lies within the selection of specific intervention strategies, which are discussed subsequently. Finally, the article presents a case illustration of how adult facilitated dramatic peer play led to a breakthrough in a range of symbolic behaviours in a 9-year-old girl with autism, who up to that point had not progressed beyond a semi-communicative use of echolalia, best described as 'situation association'.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2003 · doi:10.1177/1362361303007004010