Play complexity and toy engagement in preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder: Do girls and boys differ?
Preschool girls with autism prefer dolls and boys prefer cars—use these toy cues to speed rapport and avoid missing girls who fit the male stereotype.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Clare and her team watched preschool girls and boys with autism play in a free-choice room.
They scored how complex the play was and noted every toy the kids touched.
The goal: see if girls and boys with autism pick different toys or play in different ways.
What they found
Play complexity was the same for both sexes.
Girls reached for dolls and kitchen items more often.
Boys reached for cars and the toy garage more often.
The pattern looked like typical gender play, just less intense.
How this fits with other research
Crawford et al. (2015) found almost no sex gap in social play a year earlier.
Kocher et al. (2015) also saw zero sex differences in a large toddler sample.
Together these studies say: core autism signs look alike in boys and girls, but toy choice is the one place gender shows through.
Rodriguez-Seijas et al. (2020) later showed girls can have milder social-affect scores when IQ is matched, adding nuance without overturning the toy finding.
Why it matters
When you assess play, note which toys the child prefers, not just how well they play.
A girl who ignores dolls or a boy who ignores wheels could give you extra clues.
Use gender-typical toys first to build rapport, then branch out to expand interests.
This small tweak can boost engagement in your very first session.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
While sex differences in play have been extensively observed in typical development, only a handful of studies have explored this phenomenon in depth with children with autism spectrum disorders. This study explored sex differences in play complexity and toy engagement within caregiver-child interaction samples for preschool-aged children (2-5 years 11 months) with an autism spectrum disorder who were matched to typically developing children on sex and non-verbal development. Overall we found that girls and boys with autism spectrum disorder were largely equivalent in their play complexity. Despite similar play, girls and boys with autism spectrum disorder differed in a number of ways in their toy engagement, replicating traditional gender differences-girls played more with dolls and domestic items (though at lower rates than typically developing girls) and boys played more with the garage and cars (though at lower rates than typically developing boys). Our findings support the importance and utility of examining sex differences in autism spectrum disorder in light of those observed within typical development.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2017 · doi:10.1177/1362361315622410