Children’s engagement in play happens so naturally and effortlessly that it is easy to take for granted the powerful role it plays in their development. For most children, play begins within the first few months of life and quickly becomes richer and more complex along with other developing skills. Given that the domains of children’s development are all inter-related and influenced by one another, play is in fact essential to cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being in children.
Play is the means by which children learn to interact with the world around them. It allows for exploration and mastery of all that is novel for them in a manner that is safe and at their own pace. Children get to practice adult roles, conquer their fears, replay difficult situations, and create new empowering endings. Children whose verbal skills may be limited can still explore their experiences and work through their worries and frustrations through play. Based upon observations of play in animals, researchers have concluded that the function of play across species is to build pro-social brains, or brains that are wired for positive social interactions.
Given that play lays the foundation for the development of social and friendship skills, when a child does not naturally engage in a wide repertoire of play, it becomes necessary to facilitate the development of this domain. Children with Autism are particularly likely to have difficulties in their play skills, and their social difficulties are a well-established feature of their diagnosis. For these children, parents and educators must actively implement programs that promote the developmental progression of play skills. Children must first be taught to engage in spontaneous sensorimotor play, involving engaging in various actions on objects. Subsequently, children can be taught functional play involving using an object in a socially conventional manner. Finally, play progresses to involving more abstract representations of everyday life and is known as symbolic play.
All play skills can be taught by initially facilitating imitation and reinforcing any attempts the child makes at spontaneous imitation. New toys and play scenarios should always be introduced gradually and systematically, ensuring that the child demonstrates success in independently engaging with the items prior to introducing additional materials. Deliberately targeting the promotion of play skills for children with Autism can serve to build a foundation upon which they can develop the necessary skills for socialization and emotional self-regulation. Play will not only facilitate the development of a richer inner-world, but a means to express it when verbal communication is not optimal.
Working With Autism is located at 16530 Ventura Blvd, Suite 510 in Encino. For more information, please call 818-582-2210 and visit www.workingwithautism.com.