Social play and autistic spectrum disorders: a perspective on theory, implications and educational approaches.

Jordan (2003) looked at why social play in autism often stalls.

The paper is a narrative review. It pulls together theory and classroom reports.

The author argues that social and cognitive play skills feed each other. When both lag, the loop breaks.

The review says direct teaching can restart the broken loop.

Instead of waiting for natural discovery, adults give clear steps.

Once a child gains one piece, the cycle can spin again.

Taylor et al. (1993) already showed autistic kids can do symbolic play if you prompt them. Rita widens the lens to the whole social-cognitive loop.

Lancioni et al. (2000) and Petry et al. (2007) later proved the point. They used video modeling plus a verbal description step. All children learned to start and keep cooperative play.

Peters et al. (2018) echoes the same rule for social skills. Stand-alone perspective-taking drills failed. Only embedded, direct teaching worked.

Together the chain moves from early hints (C et al.) to classroom packages (A et al. 2007) to wider social skills (Peters). Rita’s idea sits in the middle and ties them.

If you run play groups, stop hoping kids will simply pick it up. Model the scene, have the child say what will happen, then let them play. That three-step script comes straight from the studies that extend Rita’s claim. You can start Monday and see more turns, more talk, and longer sequences by Friday.