Introduction
Children with autism may present challenges in playing with one another. This limits their level of interaction with one another, which is normally essential for children’s development. Interaction of children with each other during play makes it possible for them to learn from one another, and also, they can enjoy their time together. It is possible to establish the skills for play in children diagnosed with autism by teaching them how to play with one another. These children can learn play skills through play lessons, including interacting with one another, sharing things, and taking turns in different activities. In order for a teacher to be efficient in instructing children with autism on these skills, it is essential to choose teaching methods and plays that capture the interest of the child and also teach activities the children can do. My research will focus on teaching imaginary/to pretend skills to a child with autism.
Literature review
Children with autism have been diagnosed with impairments in pretend play. Children with autism typically demonstrate repetitive behaviors when playing with one another. Their play, however, lacks features like social and symbolic quality. For a play to be successful, it must have interactions, imitation, and also spontaneous language. Various teaching approaches have been utilized to educate on different play abilities to autistic children. For instance, pivotal response training is effective in helping these children to acquire play skills. It is also effective in enhancing social behavior. Another approach that was effective in equipping autistic children with cooperative play skills with their peers is the use of play scripts. In particular research, play scripts were utilized to teach autistic children to play with others; it was discovered that the children developed social behavior based on the play theme (MacDonald et al., 2009). Video modeling is also an approach that has shown great success in the development of play abilities in autistic children. Particularly, video modeling efficiently increases play statements when children play with their siblings. It has also proved to be a success in educating children initiation of playing with other people. Research also discovered that the video modeling method effectively taught the children how to extend the length of play, especially if the plays were conducted between children with autism and adults. Additionally, video modeling taught enabled children with autism to develop play actions when using toys, and it enabled the children to involve verbalization when playing. Another significant contribution of video modeling is helping children develop solitary play skills. After learning this, these children did not have to be initiated to play through reinforcement or any other way of promotion.
Autistic children have been shown to lack the ability to use symbols during play. Symbolic play is important in children’s development because it is essential to developing social interaction skills and helps in language prediction. For children with autism to develop symbolic play skills, they need to be instructed. Methods like systemic prompts and naturalistic teaching have been shown to be effective in helping autistic children to develop these skills. Autistic children usually have little interest in social associations; therefore, it can be concluded that the lack of symbolic play skills results from fewer opportunities for reinforcement. Symbolic play skills can be taught to these children by allowing their interaction with play objects they easily link to real objects in life. Interaction with these objects helps them develop coordination between the play and real objects (Lee et al., 2021). Symbolic play also helps children connect the objects’ stimulus to the objects in real life. In this case, strategies to teach children symbolic play skills should emphasize exposing the children to various sensory properties.
Children develop symbolic play skills at the age of 2 to 3. However, children with autism do not develop these skills, and those with symbolic play skills are normally weak. Symbolic play skills involve behaviors like the substitution of objects, imagining objects, and attributing pretend features to an object. For children to develop symbolic play skills, they have to be taught skills like conditioned seeing, which would influence how they name things. Conditioned seeing helps the children also develop a stimulus that enables them to link imaginary objects with real objects. One of the most important approaches to teaching children with autism symbolic play skills involves having them participate in functional play (Lee et al., 2019). In functional plays, the children use objects to play as they involve pretense. Symbolic play skills can also be developed through pivotal response training involving interaction between children and adults. Video modeling was also shown to be effective in the development of multiple play behaviors. Symbolic play is essential in child development; it is, therefore, important to develop programs that address the deficit in these skills in children with autism.
Compared to normal children, children with autism usually demonstrate a particular level of delay when developing play skills. As a result, there is a need for the development of effective interventions that have the potential to resolve this problem. Play is important in children because it helps children develop some behaviors that may be utilized in routine activities and helps develop children (Pane et al., 2022). When infants are involved in play, they can develop play skills they may use in other developmental stages to achieve required goals in other activities. Good play skills allow exploration, promoting children’s mental growth. Cognition growth can be observed as the children advance in age. As they continue to be involved in the play, their ability to play with multiple objects will increase. For instance, they may begin playing with a single object at a younger age. As they increase in years, they begin to play with more than one object and then demonstrate the ability to pretend play. Children with autism are more likely to develop play skills if their developmental stage is consistent with the targets chosen during the play.
Play is one of the activities that are significant in language and social development in children. However, autistic children lack the abilities for pretend and symbolic play. Various approaches can be used to teach the children symbolic and pretend play skills. Video modeling is one of these strategies, and it acts as an essential resource in providing examples of particular skills (Depere et al., 2013). Video modeling is efficient in teaching multiple play themes; it also helps children develop pretend play skills. A substitutable loop is also another strategy that can be used to help children with autism learn different variables in play. It offers a flexible script that can involve different characters in the play. For example, a play script may use a boy’s character; the loop provides the chance to substitute the boy’s character with other characters like mum, grandpa, and other characters.
Conclusion
Play is one of the most significant activities during child development. This is because it enables children to acquire social interaction and language skills. However, children diagnosed with autism typically have delayed development of play skills, reducing their involvement in play. It is, therefore, essential to utilize various approaches to teach children with autism various play skills. Some of these approaches include video modeling, which has the benefit of increasing verbalization during play and also it provides the ability for solitary initiation of play. The use of various teaching strategies helps develop different play skills, including symbolic play skills, pretend play skills, and also the ability to relate with one another during plays.
References
Dupere, S., MacDonald, R.P.F. and Ahearn, W.H. (2013), Using video modeling with substitutable loops to teach varied play to children with autism. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 46: 662-668. https://doi-org.libproxy.library.unt.edu/10.1002/jaba.68
Lee, G.T., Hu, X., Liu, Y. and Yang, Z. (2021), Improving pretend play for children with autism through experiencing the stimulus properties of real objects. Jnl of Applied Behav Analysis, 54: 1369-1384. https://doi-org.libproxy.library.unt.edu/10.1002/jaba.843
Lee, G.T., Xu, S., Guo, S. et al. Teaching “Imaginary Objects” Symbolic Play to Young Children with Autism. J Autism Dev Disord 49, 4109–4122 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04123-9
MacDonald, R., Sacramone, S., Mansfield, R., Wiltz, K. and Ahearn, W.H. (2009), USING VIDEO MODELING TO TEACH RECIPROCAL PRETEND PLAY TO CHILDREN WITH AUTISM. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 42: 43-55. https://doi-org.libproxy.library.unt.edu/10.1901/jaba.2009.42-43
Pane, H.M., Sidener, T.M., Reeve, S.A., Kisamore, A. and Nirgudkar, A. (2022), A comparison of development-matched and age-matched targets on play skills of children with autism spectrum disorder. Jnl of Applied Behav Analysis, 55: 195-213. https://doi-org.libproxy.library.unt.edu/10.1002/jaba.891
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