Vince Gowmon famously said, “Play is the shortest route between children and their creative calling.” Yet for many autistic children, play may look different. Core diagnostic features can include differences in imaginative or creative play, a narrower range of interests, and/or the repetitive use of toys in rigid, less flexible ways. Because play is so central to early childhood development, researchers have long explored ways to support autistic children in expanding their play skills, often with mixed results. This raises an important question: how can we help our children discover and find joy in the rich and creative expressions of play?
What is Play?
All kids do it in one way or another. We all did it ourselves when we were kids. We know it when we see it. But what is play?
play
verb
- engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose
noun
- activity engaged in for enjoyment and recreation, esp. by children
~ Source: Oxford Languages
Seems simple enough! But for anyone who has worked to teach new play skills, there can often be a large gap between the development of the skill itself, and the quintessential essence of what makes play “play” - ENJOYMENT. As with other skills such as language or self-care, ABA can be a powerful tool for teaching children new toy play skills. But how do we teach children new play activities they can not only do, but WANT to do and CHOOSE to do during their downtime (because the play itself brings JOY)?
“Play is the foundation of learning, creativity, self-expression, and constructive problem-solving. It’s how children wrestle with life to make it meaningful.” ~ Susan Linn, Contemporary American psychiatrist
Why is Play Important?
Decades of research on child development suggests the act of engaging in play in and of itself has a vital role in the subsequent development of numerous important skills.
Play + General Development
Whether it’s learning concepts such as cause and effect while banging on a xylophone, planning and problem solving while stacking blocks, or reenacting daily living skills while pretending to cook, play affords children near constant learning opportunities. Educators and developmental psychologists alike recognize the importance of play in children’s development. From Montessori to Vygotsky, child-development experts regard play as a child-directed means for acquiring new information.
Play + Language Development
Numerous studies suggest that the depth and breadth of one’s early play-skills repertoire may be a significant predictor of later language abilities. While by necessity such research is correlational, from a behavioral / learning perspective, such findings make sense. As basic toy play skills transition to more advanced forms of pretend play, more and more language is used. In fact, some forms of pretend play, such as imaginary play (see below), are wholly dependent on the use of language (for example, hands only become “telephones” through the use of the gesture and the essential, “hello….?”). In other words, the more a child plays, the more they have the opportunity to practice their language skills and expand upon them.
Play + Social Skills Development
While solitary play is essential and vital for all (entertaining oneself via leisure is an important life skill and source of joy), as children develop play skills, they tend to extend their play to an ever-increasing group of peers. In fact, children’s social play tends to follow a general developmental progression from solitary and onlooker play, through parallel and associative play (where children play alongside each other and occasionally interact), and later expanding complexity as they begin cooperative play (which includes defined roles, responsibilities, leadership, and shared goals). Through each of these stages, children have growing opportunities to rehearse social skills such as responding to peers, making one’s needs and wants known, sharing, waiting one’s turn, sharing common interests, and so on.
“Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning.” ~ Fred Rogers
Play Skills + Autism
Children with autism will likely have delays in the development of their play skills, particularly pretend and imaginary play. Now that we have some understanding of the critical role of play in children’s learning across domains, we can see how delayed and / or limited play-skills may have detrimental effects on a child’s overall development. If a child has restricted functional play and limited toy exploration, infrequent spontaneous pretend play, or repetitive, ritualistic forms of play (all common presentations in autism), it follows they will have fewer cognitive, language, and social learning opportunities as a direct result. Thus, as people who care deeply about helping our kids learn, play becomes an important focus of intervention.
“It is a happy talent to know how to play.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Play Skills Intervention
Because play is so central to children’s development, years of research have focused on finding ways to help autistic children expand their play skills and interests. Today, families and clinicians can draw from a wide range of evidence-based, behavior-analytic approaches that support everything from early toy exploration to more complex pretend play. These strategies include pairing new or neutral toys with things a child already enjoys, teaching specific play skills through structured practice, encouraging flexibility and engagement through naturalistic methods, and using modeling—both live and video—to build richer play routines.
While these approaches have been shown to be effective in structured settings, a familiar challenge remains: the play skills children learn to demonstrate in therapy do not always carry over into their everyday lives. Too often, what a child can do in a session is not what they choose to do during free play at home or school. In such cases, can we actually assert the child is “playing” in the truest sense of the word? At FirstSteps, we would say NO.
Play only truly matters when a child wants to engage in it. If enjoyment is missing, play skills, no matter how carefully taught, are unlikely to occasion all the secondary benefits described above. Without joy, play becomes just another task, rather than the spontaneous, meaningful experience it is meant to be.
“Do not…keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play.” ~ Plato
Effective (and FUN!) Play Skills Intervention – The FirstSteps Way
If we truly want our play skills intervention to be successful, we have to take a comprehensive look at the impact of our teaching:
• “Does the child enjoy the play skill?”
• “Is it fun?”
• “Does my child choose to play this activity given other choices?”
If the answer to any of these questions is “No,” then we have not truly taught a new play skill!
So how then do we bridge the gap between just another skill and a true play skill that is a fun and preferred activity? At FirstSteps, we use a social-validation process to ensure everything about our teaching is meaningful to the individual child and designed to ensure that the child not only learns how to play the activity but actually enjoys doing so.
Meet Your Child Where They Are at Today
Just as language or motor skills tend to follow a general developmental trajectory as children age, so do play skills. Young toddlers tend to select cause and effect play and sensorimotor toys, before beginning simple pretend play using life-like objects to reenact common daily-life activities (functional pretend play). Older toddlers and preschoolers tend to transition through increasingly abstract and creative forms of pretend play, from symbolic play with abstract objects through imaginary (using language and gestures to create not-present items and properties), up through advanced sociodramatic role play. School aged children tend to spend a lot of time in constructive play and gross motor games and play. And so on. Point being, we can and should begin our play intervention at the child’s current developmental level and gradually build upon their existing preferred play as we introduce more and more complexity over time.
Consider Their Interests
If we want a play skill to become a true leisure or social skill, the child has to be interested! Too often, interventionists randomly select toys to teach, based perhaps on what their same-age peers are interested in. As part of the social-validation process, it is crucial that each child’s interests are first assessed, and potential preferred toys are selected. Children must be given choices in selecting what toys and play activities they’d like to learn. In fact, as expected, our data suggest that when children get to choose which play activities will be a focus for intervention, they learn faster, generalize better, and experience more engagement and joy with the new play. Now that’s a win!
Keep Track of JOY
Yes, we do in fact measure joy! Is the child smiling? Is there laughter? Is the child seeking to continue the activity even when the intervention time is complete for the day? Although every child will express joy in different manner, as teachers it is important that we assess a child’s joyful indicators and, if low or decreasing, adjust our teaching accordingly. It is our instructional responsibility to make certain that the child is engaged and interested throughout the play activity. Remember, the greater the joy, the more likely the play will become a preferred “go to activity” rather than just a sequence of actions the child does in response to being prompted to “go play.”
Putting it All Together
With consideration of the child’s developmental play level, social play skills, unique interests, and joyfulness, we have literally limitless opportunities to create and nurture varied, fun, creative play repertoires.
A Brief Example….MEET JOEY: As an example, our client, Joey had a rich repertoire of imaginary and sociodramatic play, but he rarely engaged in constructive play which we noted was negatively impacting his friendships. It was time to help Joey see the fun of constructive play. A quick preference assessment indicated that Joey was most motivated to engage and enjoy gross motor activities and so, we sought to pair constructive play with his already preferred gross motor play. Joey was offered a choice of a variety of constructive activities to learn with various gross motor components, and lo and behold, he selected the giant foam blocks he could build and climb through. With lots of silliness and showing him how he could physically engage in this constructive play activity, soon Joey was having a blast building with blocks (and crawling through his creations). His joy markers went through the roof. He not only rapidly learned to create various constructions with the blocks, he was observed to also regularly choose to play with the giant blocks in his free-time. Furthermore, this play generalized to choosing to play with other, novel constructive materials. Now that’s REAL and AUTHENTIC play!
"It’s the things we play with and the people who help us play that make a great difference in our lives.” ~Fred Rogers
In Sum….Make Play Intervention FUN (as defined by YOUR child)!
At its heart, play is not a sequence of learned actions children perform, play is something children are drawn to and want to do. True play is self-chosen, joyful, and meaningful, unfolding naturally when a child feels curious, engaged, and safe to explore. When we focus only on teaching the mechanics of play without nurturing its joy, we risk missing what makes play powerful in the first place.
The real measure of successful play intervention, then, is not whether a child can demonstrate a play skill when prompted, but whether they want to use it when no one is asking. When play intervention is rooted in a child’s interests, matched to their developmental level, and infused with genuine fun, play becomes more than a learned behavior, it becomes a source of connection, creativity, and growth for a child.
Thus, by prioritizing joy, choice, and engagement, we open the door for play to flourish beyond therapy sessions and into children’s everyday lives. And it is there…in living rooms, classrooms, and playgrounds, that play truly does its most important work.
If you have any additional or follow up questions about how you can capture the power of play for your child, please reach out to your local FirstSteps clinic today!