Qualities of symbolic play among children with autism: a social-developmental perspective.
Autistic kids can hit the play script but miss the creative fun—train the social spark, not just the steps.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Hobson et al. (2009) watched autistic and non-autistic kids play with the same toys. They matched each child by age and language level.
The team scored every play act for creativity, self-awareness, investment, and fun. They wanted to see if autistic kids show the same social spark.
What they found
Autistic kids moved the toys correctly but the play felt flat. They showed less imagination, less pride, and less joy than their peers.
The motions were there; the social-developmental heart was missing.
How this fits with other research
Gilbert (2003) already showed that autistic kids struggle most when play must be invented on the spot. Peter’s team zooms in on why: the creative, self-aware layer is thin.
Irvin et al. (1998) saw the same flat quality in toddlers. Peter confirms the pattern lasts into the preschool years.
Watson et al. (2007) gives hope. Their video-modeling program boosted varied, creative play. Peter’s work says that is exactly the quality we need to target.
Why it matters
When you run play sessions, do not stop at getting the right actions. Ask: Is the child inventing, smiling, showing off? Add mini-challenges that require a new idea, a joke, or a shared grin. Use short video clips or peer models to show what playful looks like, then prompt for the feeling, not just the move.
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Film a 20-second clip of a peer laughing while stacking blocks into a silly tower; show it before free play and prompt, “Make yours funny too.”
02At a glance
03Original abstract
We hypothesized that the qualities of play shown by children with autism reflect their impoverished experience of identifying with other people's attitudes and moving among person-anchored perspectives. On this basis, we predicted their play should manifest a relative lack of the social-developmental hallmarks that typify creative symbolic functioning. We videotaped the spontaneous and modelled symbolic play of matched groups of children with and without autism. The two groups were similar in the mechanics of play, for example in making one thing stand for another and using materials flexibly. By contrast, and as predicted, children with autism were rated as showing less playful pretend involving self-conscious awareness of pretending, investment in the symbolic meanings given to play materials, creativity, and fun.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2009 · doi:10.1007/s10803-008-0589-z