“Children learn as they play. Most importantly, in play children learn how to learn.”

-O. Fred Donaldson

Many people have happy childhood memories of playing with friends, when they imagined being and doing all kinds of things. Play is an important part of how children develop and explore imagination, problem solving, communication and friendship.

 “Autistic play is authentic play.” Cari Ebert

Autistic children often play differently than their peers. They usually focus on sensory exploration and making or following patterns. What they are doing is productive and satisfying for them and should be respected. However, it is worth considering how to offer support to help them enjoy collaborative and imaginative play with other children.

Defining Play

Play requires active participation.

Play is spontaneous, voluntary and intrinsically motivated.

Play is about the process, not the end product.

Play is flexible and changing – different every time.

Play includes pretending and imagining new possibilities.

Babies and young children begin to play by manipulating the objects around them. As a child grows, play develops in complexity and purpose.  

Functional play describes children imitating how they see others using objects, such as cooking in a play kitchen or building with Legos. Imitation is the beginning of pretend play, which becomes increasingly complex as children grow.

Social play is related to the development of communication. Babies and toddlers enjoy playful exchanges in social games like peek-a-boo, where they experience the pattern of enjoyable back-and-forth communication. When they begin to interact with other children, play with peers progresses from observing others, playing alongside others with the same toys, to sharing or creating ideas together. Children of all ages explore each of these domains of play with greater complexity as their social abilities grow. 

The Importance of Play

When children play, their brains grow.  

Playing helps children learn about:

• relationships between objects
• cause and effect
• problem-solving
• planning
• flexible and divergent thinking
• abstract thought

Play develops children’s ability to explore stories, tell their own, and use symbols. In this way, play and literacy are related.

Cooperative play helps children grow as social connectors. They practice communication, perspective-taking, social awareness, and explore how trust, negotiation, intimacy and compromise work to form friendships.

Play helps children explore their emotions and express them in moments of joy and in conflict or stress. It develops inventiveness and imagination. It also helps children with physical growth, fine and gross motor skills, and sensory regulation.

Play creates a safe space where there are no mistakes.  It allows children to reach the edge of their capabilities and explore how they can do just a little bit more. They learn new vocabulary, explore forms of language and culture, and develop their abilities to make ideas come into being.

The Benefits of Play with Peers

Autistic children often prefer to play by themselves. They find the back-and-forth of play with peers to be difficult to understand and predict, and their peers often don’t know how to respond to their autistic friends.

As a result, children with autism have limited opportunities to practice playing with other people, apart from adults who can understand and accommodate the playful activities they are more comfortable doing. While solitary play also has value, the missed opportunities to explore social skills can lead to misunderstanding and lack of connection with peers, and harmful social situations such as bullying or loneliness.

Integrated Play Groups

Peer Play and the Autism Spectrum: The Art of Guiding Children’s Socialization and Imagination is a book written by award-winning researcher Pamela J. Wolfberg to describe the focus of her long-term research. It discusses how we can help autistic children play with their peers, so that play activities are enjoyable for everyone.

The book describes the strategies she developed for setting up inclusive play groups with 3-5 children between the ages of 3-11. She explains how to gather and prepare players, equipping the space and structuring the play session. She also describes how to create opportunities for children to play more responsively and collaboratively.

Integrated play groups require:

• a group of children
• an adult excited to try the process
• toys related to the novice player’s interests
• a play space

They can happen in schools, daycares, community programs, or homes.  They might take place twice a week, for 6 months to a year. Each session is 30-60 minutes.

Each session provides an opportunity for autistic children to play with a small group of neurotypical peers. The adult guide provides a routine that begins with a greeting, equips the play space with toys that are appealing to all players, and observes the autistic child for opportunities to encourage them to share their interests and ideas. The facilitator might invite the others to notice too.

An example:

“Freddy watches as three peers take turns hiding in the play refrigerator…A moment later, Freddy quietly squeezes into the refrigerator, closing the door on himself. Meanwhile, the others go off to play something else. Moments later Freddy poles his head out of the refrigerator door. Freddy wants to play hide and seek with his peers. To respond, ask the players if they know where Freddy is. Help Freddy communicate his interest. For example, the guide might teach Freddy to say, ‘Come and find me!’.”

Benefits of Interactive Play Groups for Autistic Children

Dr. Wolfberg and others have researched the results of participation in interactive play groups.

Children with autism expand their social interactions in play, which carries over to other settings and situations without adult support.

Intriguingly, participants also showed progress in communication skills such as writing, speaking and drawing.

Neurotypical children benefited as well, learning how to invite and include their play partners and learning that differences are interesting and okay.

All the children found the sessions to be fun, and formed mutual friendships with their play partners that lasted beyond the play group sessions.

Further Reading

Dr. Wolfberg founded the Autism Collective for Peer Socialization, Play and Imagination, which continues to do research and offers training and teaching materials.

The Friend2Friend Social Learning Society is an innovative organization in Vancouver, which also offers training as it supports integrated play groups and autism awareness programs in British Columbia and beyond.