Symbolic play skills are important in language acquisition and child development. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulties demonstrating such play behaviors. Imaginary objects symbolic play refers to play behavior in which children perform play actions without actual objects. Three boys with ASD (3-7 years) participated…

Past research has focused on pretend play in infants with autism because it is considered an early manifestation of symbolic or imaginative thinking. Contradictory research findings have challenged the meta-representational model. The intent of this paper is to propose that pretend play is the behavioral manifestation of developing imaginative…

This study examined the effectiveness of the Picture Me Playing intervention for increasing the play dialogue of preschool children with ASD during pretend play opportunities with typical peers. Picture Me Playing is a pictorially enhanced, script based intervention targeting character role play through a narrative vignette. A single-treatment…

This study describes a longitudinal design (following subjects described in Rutherford & Rogers [2003, "Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorder", 33, 289-302]) to test for predictors of pretend play competence in a group of children with autism. We tested the hypothesis that developmental change in pretend play performance can be predicted by…