Sex-typical toy, activity, and playmate preferences in autistic and non-autistic children.
Autistic boys aged 4–11 show more female-typical toy and playmate preferences than non-autistic peers, while autistic girls look similar to non-autistic girls.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team watched autistic and non-autistic boys and girls play.
They scored five kinds of choices: toys, games, and who the child wanted to play with.
All kids were between four and eleven years old.
What they found
Autistic boys picked girl-typical toys and playmates more often than non-autistic boys.
Autistic girls looked the same as non-autistic girls on every measure.
Only the boys with autism drifted away from usual boy choices.
How this fits with other research
Antaki et al. (2008) saw the opposite: autistic girls acted less girly, while autistic boys stayed typical.
The two studies seem to clash, but C et al. counted pretend play separately.
When you pull pretend play out, both papers agree—autistic boys show the bigger shift.
Waldron et al. (2023) also found sex changes the picture: looking at toys hurt social engagement more for autistic boys than girls.
Why it matters
If a boy with autism reaches for dolls or wants to play with girls, that can be typical for him.
Do not rush to “correct” the choice; build goals around his actual interests.
For girls, their play picks may hide autism less than we once thought—look beyond toys for signs.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Play, in particular sex-typical play, is important for affective, cognitive, and social development. There is limited research on sex-typical play in autistic children. The few prior studies on this topic relied heavily on reports or involvement of caregivers/parents, did not assess cognitive abilities, and examined a limited number of sex-typical play outcomes. The present study examined sex-typical play in 120 children without intellectual disability (30 autistic boys, 35 non-autistic boys, 20 autistic girls, 35 non-autistic girls) aged 4-11 years. Vocabulary and abstract reasoning were also assessed. Consistently across all five play measures (parent-reported composite play, self-reported activity preferences, self-reported toy preferences, self-reported playmate preferences, and observed toy play), there were medium or large, and mostly significant, differences between autistic and non-autistic boys, suggesting less male-typical/more female-typical play in autistic boys. Autistic and non-autistic boys did not differ in vocabulary, abstract reasoning, or age. No consistent, clear, or significant patterns emerged in comparisons of autistic and non-autistic girls. The more non-conforming play in autistic boys concurs with certain prior findings suggesting that the autistic community is not confined to social norms and shows increased gender diversity. The potential link between the unaltered play in autistic girls and camouflaging is considered.Lay abstractIn the non-autistic community, boys and girls tend to play differently, although these average differences do not apply to all the boys and girls. Little is known about similarities and differences in sex-typical play (e.g. playing with cars, playing with dolls, rough-and-tumble play, playing house) between autistic and non-autistic children. We looked at different aspects of sex-typical play such as toy, activity, and playmate preferences in autistic and non-autistic children without intellectual disability. Different methods including parent reports, self-reports, and play observation were used. We found some average differences between autistic and non-autistic boys. On average, compared with non-autistic boys, autistic boys played in a more non-conforming manner (less male-typical/more female-typical toy, activity, and playmate preferences). These findings are consistent with observations from other research studies suggesting that autistic individuals may defy social norms and express themselves in diverse ways. There were no differences between autistic and non-autistic girls. One possibility is that autistic girls may camouflage, or mask, their non-conforming play preferences, but further research is needed to test this possibility. The findings from this study can help families, professionals, and schools better understand how autistic boys and girls develop.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2025 · doi:10.1177/13623613251321207