Play and autism

During my time off, I spent a fair amount of time reading about playing. Play is a child's work, the way s/he learns to make sense of the world. It is not a waste of time!

What about kids on the spectrum? In 1979, Wing and Gould suggested that the features of autism might be categorized in three areas: problems in socialization, communication, and imagination. Generally, instead of creative pretend play, children on the spectrum tend to prefer routines and stereotypical behavior when they have free time and "play". In this type of play, there is no learning occurring, although perhaps it serves as a form of self-comfort. It has been shown in research (Solomon, 2007; Wolfberg, 2009) that children with autism can expand their pretend play. Wolfberg paired children with autism with typical peers and guided the play interaction, guiding both the typical peer and the child with autism, and she provides many examples of pretend play in her groups. Solomon and colleagues (2007) run a program called The PLAY Project in Michigan, I believe, with young children in Early Intervention Programs. They based their methods on Greenspan's DIR/Floortime model. Pre and post testing demonstrated that 45% of the children made god to very good progress.

So, we know that play can be improved in children with autism. Who is responsible for helping with this? Parents, trained by university personnel? After-school program teachers, classroom teachers and aids? In a short school day (6 hours) with many goals on a child's IEP, when will a teacher have time to 'play' with the kids? How do we get the parents involved? To be honest, schools bear the responsibility to educate the child, but a six-hour school day alone cannot remedy everything; parents, guardians, and caretakers have to be involved.

Play does build cognitive, social and emotional growth (Elkind,  2007).  So, how do we bring play into schooling for kids on the spectrum?