Picture me playing: increasing pretend play dialogue of children with autism spectrum disorders.
A homemade picture script quickly boosts pretend-play language in preschoolers with autism and the gains last.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team made a small picture book for each child. The book showed kids pretending and gave short lines to say.
Children with autism looked at the pictures, copied the words, and then played. Staff watched and counted the talk.
What they found
Every child used more play words right away. They said the scripted lines and also made up new ones.
The new talk showed up later when the book was gone.
How this fits with other research
Topuz et al. (2019) got the same lift using audio scripts instead of pictures. Both studies show the idea works in two senses: eyes and ears.
Yamamoto et al. (2020) kept the script on the table and never faded it. Kids still spoke more. This tells us the prompt can stay visible and still help.
Pratt (1985) warned that old play studies often mixed different diagnoses. The new papers, including this one, look only at autism, so we can trust the gains more.
Why it matters
You can make a picture script tonight with a phone camera and a printer. Show it before play time, read the short lines together, then let the child play. No extra gadgets or peer training needed. Try it during centers or free play and tally new pretend talk for ten minutes. If it works, keep the book in the bin and make a new one each week.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study examined the effectiveness of the Picture Me Playing intervention for increasing the play dialogue of preschool children with ASD during pretend play opportunities with typical peers. Picture Me Playing is a pictorially enhanced, script based intervention targeting character role play through a narrative vignette. A single-treatment counterbalanced design was utilized to contrast the performance of intervention and comparison groups, followed by within-subject analysis. Results indicated significant increases in play dialogue represented by both scripted and novel utterances. Results generalized to an unscripted play opportunity with novel toys.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2011 · doi:10.1007/s10803-010-1108-6