Play contributes autistic children's language skills

Lead researcher

Completed project

Manuscript accepted

Spark: Play is fun, safe and self-motivating. It provides a perfect context to support neurodiverse children's learning. 

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Gap in research: Pretend play is key to develop children's long-term language skills. Although theoretically sound, empirical results suggest inconsistent effects of pretend play. Also, little is known on how different types of pretend play (e.g. object substitution) affect different language outcomes (e.g. syntax). This is particularly influential for autistic children, who are more drawn towards play activities that they are interested in.

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Research context: The current study examined N=92 autistic children and N=92 non-autistic children in the Australian context. We used propensity score matching to extract a matched non-autistic sample (i.e. matched sociodemographic backgrounds, previous language abilities and non-verbal intelligence), which is an innovative approach in autism research. 

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Research findings: 

• Object substitution skills at age 3 contribute to autistic children's semantics, syntax and coherence abilities at age 7, in addition to their language skills at age 3. 

• Peer pretend play skills at age 3 contribute to autistic children's semantics and coherence abilities at age 7, in addition to their language skills at age 3. 

•  Solitary pretend play skills at age 3 contribute to autistic children's syntax and coherence abilities at age 7, in addition to their language skills at age 3. 

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Take-home message: This study provides strong evidence that pretend play in early years ​holds unique influence over autistic children's language development, which is independent from socioeconomic backgrounds, previous language abilities and non-verbal intelligence. Thus, we should promote autistic children's object substitution skills, solitary and peer pretend play skills at home and in schools, thereby improving their long-term language skills.