How to teach play skills to young children with autism?
[mme_highlight] Children with autism are less likely to develop play skills at the same pace as their peers. Modeling has been proved to be an effective way to teach play skills to young children with autism, which can be acquired and generalized fast. [mme_highlight]
Autism is a developmental disability which significantly affects many aspects of children’s life, including education and socialization. Children with this developmental disease tend to show repetitive behaviors and to resist to changes in the environment showing difficulty to socialize. Consequently, children with autism are less likely to develop play skills at the same pace as their peers.
It is well known that play is essential for children, contributing to the cognitive, physical, social development as well as for their emotional and general well-being. Parents of children with autism often find difficulties to help promoting their children’s socialization and play skills.
How should parents teach their autistic children to play?
There are many levels or playing that should be promoted progressively.
Solitary Play
When children play by themselves.
The focus is on toy manipulation, firstly with one step and then with two steps. One example is to balance a baby doll and then put it to sleep on a bed. It is very likely that the child will memorize the actions you show, so try to show different actions for each toy.
Parallel Play
When two children are next to each other playing with similar objects.
Try parallel play with an adult first – for instance, you can sit with your child coloring a book. Then, introduce parallel play with another child, a good start could be a sand box with lots of different tools.
Associative Play
Associative play implies toy sharing between children. To prepare your child for this level, it is important to make good basis on solitary play first, specially reinforcing turn taking. A way to begin teaching turn taking is to seat near to your child and then push a car in his/her direction, then he/she has to push it back to you.
Give a positive reinforcement to your child for trying. An appropriate setting for associative play would be to integrate your child in a group of children playing with cubes to build a tower, even if they are building their own towers, they have to interact by sharing cubes.
Cooperative Play
Cooperative play demands a high level of socialization, occurring when two or more children are playing, sharing thoughts on a toy, rules and defining roles. Give positive reinforcement as progresses regarding social skills are attained. Also, remember to propose activities you find your child may like and start with 2 children and few minutes of playing, gradually increasing both number of children and playing time. One good example to promote cooperative play is organizing a circus.
First, this gives opportunity for children to cooperate in the manual work needed (design advertisements, tickets, choose costumes…). Then it is time for the circus to start and children must show coordination: one is selling the tickets, other checking them at the entrance, other presents the show and others may rehearsal a funny number.
How to organize playdates?
Playdates do not have to be a headache for parents of children with a diagnosis of autism, but generally they cause much anxiety that can be felt by children. Playdates are very important for children, as this promotes imagination, cooperation, sharing and comprehension skills.
Before your child is ready for playdates it can be of great help to take him/her repeatedly to public spaces where other kids are, to promote proximity with peers and increase the comfort in this gradually. Teach your child with patience and in advance how to ask a playmate for a toy and how to play with the different toys.
It can useful if you teach your child rules of a social game or to sing a song. It is also important to make a certain selection for play mates: a child with patience, able to show understanding and kindness will help the odds for success of the play date and thus reinforce positively your child about socialization.
How can autistic children learn from observation?
Modeling has been proved to be an effective way to teach play skills to young children with autism, which can be acquired and generalized fast. In fact, learning through observation of peers is essential for all children and in a particular way in those with a diagnosis of autism. Charlop-Christy Le and Freeman suggested video modeling as more effective than in-vivo modeling.
Through videos intentionally created to present modeling interventions an autistic child can watch typically developing peers or adults, over and over again, which is an advantage, as after a repeated exposure to the video, the child will ideally try to imitate the skills shown. Another advantage of this strategy is that it is cost-effective and the video can be edited in order to highlight a particular behavior.
Mansfield R and colleagues conducted a study to investigate the effect of such videos to promote play skills in autistic children. Scripted play scenarios involving various verbalizations and play actions with adults as models were videotaped.
Two children with autism were each paired with a typically developing child and the results are surprising, as shown in the boxes below. After watching the videos, children with autism showed an increase in the mean number of verbalizations as well as reciprocal verbal interactions and cooperative play.
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Scripted verbalizations and actions at baseline and after watching the video
| Scripted verbalizations | Scripted actions | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline | After video | Baseline | After video | |
| Autistic child 1 | 0.33/session | 14/session | 4.67/session | 13.5/session |
| Autistic child 2 | 0/session | 12/session | 4.67/session | 13.6/session |
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Cooperative Play
| Airport play setting | Zoo play setting | Zoo play setting | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline | After video | Baseline | After video | Baseline | After video | |
| Autistic child 1 | 17% | 87% | 0.06% | 0.5% | 15% | 90% |
| Autistic child 2 | 6% | 78% | 0.5% | 74.5% | 90% | 67% |
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Mean Duration of reciprocal verbal interaction
| Airport play setting | Zoo play setting | Zoo play setting | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline | After video | Baseline | After video | Baseline | After video | |
| Autistic child 1 | 0s | 8.7s | 1.5s | 10s | 1.5s | 7s |
| Autistic child 2 | 0s | 20s | 0s | 8.5s | 0s | 8.7s |
(s-seconds)
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Summary and Recommendations
- Autism is a developmental disability; autistic children have more difficult in developing socialization skills.
- Playing is vital for children and contributes to improve social skills in autistic children, but cooperative play may not be easy to accomplish.
- There are strategies parents should adopt to promote play with their autistic children, from solitary play to parallel, associative and cooperative play. Seeing repeatedly the way to manipulate a toy or behave in a situation can be of great help for children with autism.
- Play dates can be great to help enhance imagination, social skills and confidence in children with autism, but prior to organize one, let your child have the time to increase proximity with other children and get acquainted with toys and games.
- Studies have shown that modeling is an effective way to teach play skills to children with autism, particularly if using videos.
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References
- ErinoakKids – center for treatment and development. A Parent’s Guide: Teaching Play Skills to Children with Autism. 2012.
- MacDonald R, Sacramone S, Mansfield R. et al. Using video modeling toteach reciprocal pretend play to children with autism. J Appl Behav Anal. 2009 Spring;42(1):43-55.
- Dannenberg, L M., Video modeling and matrix training to teach pretend play in children with autism spectrum disorder (2010). Applied Behavioral Analysis Master’s Theses. Paper 20.
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