Symbolic Play in School-Aged Minimally Verbal Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
School-aged minimally verbal kids with autism can still make meaningful gains in symbolic play when you target it directly, and those gains spill over into expressive language.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team worked with minimally verbal school-age children with autism.
They used a naturalistic play intervention.
Kids could also use a speech device if they wanted.
The study was a randomized trial.
What they found
Children got better at pretend play.
Their new play also helped them use more words.
Gains showed up after direct teaching.
How this fits with other research
Taylor et al. (1993) first showed autistic kids can play symbolically when prompted.
Grace (1995) proved preschoolers learn this through PRT.
Ya-Chih et al. now push the window older, showing school-age minimally verbal kids still benefit.
Boudreau et al. (2015) saw negative play results in preschoolers; the new study flips that by adding intervention and targeting older children.
MacDonald et al. (2009) and Lancioni et al. (2000) used video modeling to boost play and language; this trial reaches the same goals with a naturalistic routine instead of screens.
Why it matters
You no longer need to assume older, minimally verbal kids have maxed out on play.
Build a short pretend-play routine into natural contexts.
Model actions, wait, and give small prompts.
Track new words that pop out during the scene.
Five minutes of play can feed both social and language goals.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Few interventions exist for school-aged minimally verbal children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Even though play skills are associated with children's production of language, few studies have focused on play for minimally verbal children. Fifty-eight minimally verbal children with ASD received a naturalistic developmental behavioral intervention. Children were randomized to receive a speech generating device in the context of the intervention or not. Children in both conditions improved in play skills at exit. Children demonstrated an increase in play skills in proximal (sessions) and distal (during blind assessment) contexts. Minimally verbal children with ASD can improve their play skills within a targeted intervention. Increases in symbolic play were associated with increases in expressive language skills.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2018 · doi:10.1007/s10803-017-3388-6